Resilience and Critical Power System Infrastructure: Lessons Learned from Natural Disasters and Future Research Needs

Abstract

Executive SummaryResilience against infrastructure failure is essential for ensuring the health and safety of communities during and following natural hazard situations. The Swiss Reinsurance Company Ltd (Swiss Re) estimated 2017 global infrastructure losses at 337 billion USD, with all but 7 billion resulting from natural hazards. (Of this, more than half was uninsured.) These losses are expected to grow as climate change continues unless actions are taken to prevent them. Importantly, people and communities in developing and emerging economies are expected to be disproportionately affected.An understanding of how natural hazards impact society in terms of economic cost, recovery time, and damages to critical infrastructure is essential for developing robust approaches to increasing resilience. Identifying specific vulnerabilities allows for better communication, planning, and situation-specific interventions. This is particularly relevant in areas recovering from a natural hazard that have the opportunity to build back their infrastructure, and for those currently planning infrastructure expansions. This paper 1 , commissioned by the World Bank's Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery, looks at a range of historical natural hazard events and their impact on power system infrastructure including: generation facilities, transmission and distribution assets, and fuel supply chains. We consider recent hurricanes, earthquakes, droughts, heat waves, extreme wind and rainfall events, ice and thunder storms as well as wildfires. For many of these, data are available for the same type of hazard in different geographies which provides information not only on specific vulnerabilities, but whether the impacts are location dependent. Where available, specific design considerations, cost information for repairs, and the recommendations for 'building back better' are presented.Within the three categories in the power system, we identify specific areas that require attention:

Promoting a resilient food supply chain model facing disruptions associated with black sky hazards

“…Additionally, the study showed that the larger the community or neighbourhood, the greater the dependency on CI in the blacksky event period. Therefore, big cities and urban zones are still more dependent on energy, where CI systems are centralised and more complex because of the ramifications of the nodes compared to rural zones (Schweikert et al, 2019).…”

“…In addition, these economies are net importers of food and therefore depend on the stability of the domestic FSC and its ability to maintain supply chain nodes efficiently and effectively during disruptive events (Orengo-Serra and Sanchez-Jauregui, 2022; Pelling and Uitto, 2001). Moreover, in most parts of island territories, energy systems are fragile and vulnerable to natural disasters, and different programs from international organisations are aware of providing resilient management tools for saving lives under these conditions (Schweikert et al, 2019;Daw and Stout, 2019). In island territories, reaching out to communities in rural and distant areas after a natural disaster is a challenge, and the development of network systems between the affected actors is vital to enhance resilience.…”

Suspending democratic (dis)belief: Nonliberal energy polities of solar power in Morocco and Tanzania

“…Throughout President Magufuli's first term, industrial revitalization remained a development priority [128]. But drought diminished hydroelectric generation, necessitating rolling blackouts [129] and bolstering national energy reliability and diversity [128]. These events shaped citizens' faith in the grid's role in development.…”

Vulnerability and resilience of power systems infrastructure to natural hazards and climate change

“…However, nearly 4 billion people (more than half the world's population) already live in areas that experience water stress for part of the year, a vulnerability expected to increase under climate change (World Bank Group, 2019). Detailed assessments of power system vulnerabilities to natural hazards have been published (e.g., Nicolas et al, 2019;Schweikert et al, 2018Schweikert et al, , 2019.…”