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Reports & Papers:
- Understanding the Cost of Power Interruptions to U.S. Electricity
Consumers - Berkeley Lab Study Estimates $80 Billion Annual Cost of
Power Interruptions - 70 page study - 2004-09-01 - The massive electric
power blackout in the northeastern United States and Canada on August 14-
15, 2003 resulted in the U.S. electricity system being called “antiquated”
and catalyzed discussions about modernizing the grid. Industry sources
suggested that investments of $50 to $100 billion would be needed. This
report seeks to quantify an important piece of information that has been
missing from these discussions: how much do power interruptions and
fluctuations in power quality (power-quality events) cost U.S. electricity
consumers? Accurately estimating this cost will help assess the potential
benefits of investments in improving the reliability of the grid. Using our
framework, we estimate that the national cost of power interruptions is
about $80 billion annually, based on the best information available in the
public domain. However, there are large gaps in and significant
uncertainties about the information currently available. Notably, we were
not able to develop an estimate of power-quality events. Sensitivity
analysis of some of these uncertainties suggests that the total annual cost
could range from less than $30 billion to more than $130 billion. Because of
this large range and the enormous cost of the decisions that may be based on
this estimate, we encourage policy makers, regulators, and industry to
jointly undertake the comparatively modest-cost improvements needed in the
information used to estimate the cost of reliability events. Specific areas
for improvement include: coordinated, nationwide collection of updated
information on the cost of reliability events; consistent definition and
recording of the duration and frequency of reliability events, including
power quality events; and improved information on the costs of and efforts
by consumers to reduce their vulnerability to reliability events.
http://www.EnergyCollection.us\Energy-Reliability\Understanding-Cost-Power.pdf