Page 14 - CARILEC CE Industry Journal_Oct_2019

Resiliency and Redundancy

in the Electricity Sector –

At What Cost?

- Murray Skeete, Vice President of Engineering and Regulation with WRB Energy
and Director of Grenada Electricity Services Ltd. (Grenlec)

Given the devastating and costly impacts of severe WEIGHING COSTS
weather events and recovery from hurricanes Irma and
Maria still ongoing, there’s been significant discussion There are a variety of options for strengthening and
about the best path forward for Caribbean electric hardening an electric system and implementing
utilities to achieve greater resiliency and redundancy in resiliency measures for faster response to storm outages.
the electricity sector. However, the cost impacts can be great. Options for
greater resiliency and redundancy can be expensive
Strategic efforts are also being made in coupling investments that need to be carefully evaluated over the
resiliency measures with climate change mitigation such long term.
as installation of microgrids, energy storage, and the
diversification of resources, specifically the addition of When evaluating resiliency and redundancy measures, it
more renewables. is important to quantify the physical outcomes,
economic effects and social impacts of severe weather
But what does resiliency mean, how is it defined? And, disasters on the system. Balancing the likelihood of an
what is the role and value of redundancy and event against the severity and cost of the consequence
duplication of critical components in the electric system on the local economy is an essential exercise to help
to help ensure reliability and security cost-effectively? prioritize resiliency investments and contain costs.

Ultimately, the feasibility of any improvement in
DEFINITION OF RESILIENCE resiliency or redundancy has to be balanced against the
cost that the customer base can realistically be expected
The National Academy of Sciences defines “resilience” to bear. While it might seem logical that improving
as the ability to prepare and plan for, absorb, recover resiliency through physical hardening of the systems and
from, and more successfully adapt to adverse events. In adding more redundancy is a beneficial step, it is
this article, resiliency is considered in the context of important to assess the overall cost in the context of
Caribbean and other small island states, looking at both each small-island state and the customer’s ability to
physical measures that could be taken to harden the afford the resultant price of electricity.
electric system to lessen the risk of power outages
during storms and hurricanes, and the adoption of
processes for rapid recovery when outages do occur.
Ultimately, whatever measures are taken to improve
resiliency must be appropriate and cost-effective for the
small systems involved.

12 CE INDUSTRY Journal