Electric utilities

The heat dome that descended upon the Pacific Northwest in late June 2021 met a population radically unprepared for it. Almost two-thirds of households earning US$50,000 or less and 70% of rented houses in Washington’s King, Pierce and Snohomish counties had no air conditioning. In Spokane, nearly one-quarter of survey respondents didn’t have in-home air conditioning, and among those who did, 1 in 5 faced significant, often financial, barriers to using it. Imagine having no way to cool your home as temperatures spiked to 108 degrees Fahrenheit (43 Celsius), and 120 F (49 C) in some places. People in urban heat islands – areas with few trees and lots of asphalt and concrete that can absorb and radiate heat – saw temperatures as much as 14 F (7.8 C) higher than that. Extreme heat disasters like this are becoming increasingly common in regions where high heat used to be rare. Blackouts during severe heat waves can also leave residents who believe they are...

Americans want their electricity to be cheap, clean and reliable, but that trifecta is becoming more elusive, thanks to climate change. According to a 2021 report by the nonprofit research organization Climate Central, more than 80% of reported major outages across the U.S. from 2000 through 2021 were caused by weather extremes, such as heat waves, wildfires and tropical storms. We are an economist and an electrical engineer investigating how increased use of two-way smart meter technology can be used to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the electricity sector and help the economy withstand climate-driven weather extremes. As we see it, adapting the power system to increasingly volatile weather will require a combination of user-friendly technologies and economic incentives. From January through September 2022, the U.S. experienced 15 weather and climate disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion each. Some of these events caus...