Severe weather, blackouts show the grid's biggest problem is infrastructure, not renewables

Posted February 15, 2021

External Article: TechCrunch

Emily Grubert, an assistant professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering who also holds a courtesy appointment in the School of Public Policy, was mentioned in the article "Severe weather, blackouts show the grid's biggest problem is infrastructure, not renewables," published Feb. 15, 2021 in TechCrunch

A tweet from Gruber commenting on recent blackouts resulting from a winter storm in the Midwest was featured in the story from author Jonathan Shieber, which explored issues with the power infrastructure that contributed to the blackouts.

Excerpt:

As Dr. Emily Grubert, an assistant professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and, by courtesy, of Public Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology, noted, the problem is more of a total systems issue than one associated with renewable power.

"Let us be absolutely clear: if there are grid failures today, it shows the existing (largely fossil-based) system cannot handle these conditions either," Grubert wrote on Twitter. "These are scary, climate change-affected conditions that pose extreme challenges to the grid. We are likely to continue to see situations like this where our existing system cannot easily handle them. Any electricity system needs to make massive adaptive improvements."

Full story.

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