• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Cities & Communities
  • Electric Mobility
  • Heat & Power
  • Community Climate Finance
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Cities & Communities
  • Electric Mobility
  • Heat & Power
  • Community Climate Finance
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Cities & Communities
  • Electric Mobility
  • Heat & Power
  • Community Climate Finance
  FEATURED
REVEALED: Imperial Oil, Alberta Regulator Knew of Toxic Seepage at Kearl Mine for Years, Kept First Nation in the Dark October 3, 2023
Oil and Gas, Buildings Drive 2.1% Rise in Canada’s Climate Pollution October 2, 2023
Shell CEO Doubles Down on Renewable Cuts Despite Internal Pushback October 2, 2023
Leading Climate Models Underestimate Clean Energy Progress, Overstate Cost, Study Finds October 2, 2023
UAE Holds Major Oil and Gas Conference Before Hosting COP 28 Climate Summit October 2, 2023
Next
Prev

Microgrid Could Have Prevented 11-Hour Power Outage at World’s Busiest Airport

January 7, 2018
Reading time: 2 minutes

Atlantacitizen/Wikimedia Commons

Atlantacitizen/Wikimedia Commons

 

An 11-hour pre-Christmas power outage at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport had grid resilience specialists asking a tough but obvious question: Why didn’t the world’s busiest airport have a microgrid in place?

The outage delayed more than 1,000 flights and left passengers “stranded for hours in darkened terminals or seated in planes,” Elisa Wood writes on Microgrid Knowledge. “Posting on Twitter, stranded travelers questioned why the airport had no backup power.”

  • The climate news you need. Subscribe now to our engaging new weekly digest.
  • You’ll receive exclusive, never-before-seen-content, distilled and delivered to your inbox every weekend.
  • The Weekender: Succinct, solutions-focused, and designed with the discerning reader in mind.
Subscribe

It turned out that Georgia Power, the local utility, did indeed have a “redundant” system to avert a blackout. But it was located too close to the fire in an underground electrical facility that took out the main power supply—so the backup failed, too.

“What the airport clearly lacked—and needed—is an advanced microgrid system,” Wood states, citing interviews with several power system experts. “The widespread blackout appears to have been the result of a series of cascading failures that caused the airport’s power system to collapse like dominos.” And “microgrids distributed at various locations throughout the facility, or nearby, could have prevented the cascade,” using some combination of renewable energy, energy storage, combined heat and power, and fossil fuel generators to keep the power on.

When grid problems do occur, advanced microgrids’ ability to “island” and isolate themselves from a faulty grid means outages can be contained faster and fixed sooner, said Schneider Electric Vice President Mark Feasel. “They can predict, prevent, or mitigate faults—that is a characteristic of an advanced microgrid.” Most advanced systems are also set up in clusters, with two or more microgrids backing each other up.

“Given the fire, some part of the airport probably would have still lost power,” Wood writes, citing Feasel. But “most travelers probably would have been unaware a problem existed had a microgrid been in operation.”

Wood notes that microgrids for airports and transit hubs are nothing new: In the U.S., they’re already in place in facilities in California, Connecticut, Vermont, New Jersey, Maine, and New York City. Chattanooga is developing a solar microgrid for its airport, and a microgrid serves the transit centre at Denver International Airport.

In Windsor Locks, CT, a microgrid originally installed in 2002 kept Bradley International Airport in operation during a 2011 snowstorm that caused extensive damage to power lines, dropping  3.2 million customers in 12 states off the grid for up to 11 days. The microgrid delivered again when the region was thrown into turmoil a year later by Hurricane Sandy.

“Any type of severe event such as a hurricane, or in this case a fire, can quickly create a massive power outage,” said Jack Griffin, Vice President and General Manager of a division of Veolia North America. “Microgrids solve this problem by generating and distributing power to critical facilities, including hospitals and airports, allowing these key service-providing assets to continue operations without interruption.”



in Air & Marine, Heat & Power, Off-Grid, Severe Storms & Flooding, United States

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

Dawn Ellner/flickr
Carbon Levels & Measurement

Oil and Gas, Buildings Drive 2.1% Rise in Canada’s Climate Pollution

October 2, 2023
62
Solarimo/pixabay
Ending Emissions

Leading Climate Models Underestimate Clean Energy Progress, Overstate Cost, Study Finds

October 2, 2023
261
GFDL/Wikimedia Commons
Energy Subsidies

Clean Energy Funding Isn’t Just About Money, Policy Expert Warns

October 2, 2023
39

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

jasonwoodhead23/flickr

REVEALED: Imperial Oil, Alberta Regulator Knew of Toxic Seepage at Kearl Mine for Years, Kept First Nation in the Dark

October 3, 2023
147
Ramon FVelasquez/Wikipedia

Shell CEO Doubles Down on Renewable Cuts Despite Internal Pushback

October 2, 2023
142
Iota 9/Wikimedia Commons

‘Huge Loss’ for Local Green Economy as Vancouver Shutters Its Economic Commission

September 28, 2023
359
YouTube

UAE Holds Major Oil and Gas Conference Before Hosting COP 28 Climate Summit

October 3, 2023
75
Solarimo/pixabay

Leading Climate Models Underestimate Clean Energy Progress, Overstate Cost, Study Finds

October 2, 2023
261
Jon Sullivan/flickr

Thorold Gas Peaker Plant Won’t Be Built After Unanimous City Council Vote

September 21, 2023
880

Recent Posts

Dawn Ellner/flickr

Oil and Gas, Buildings Drive 2.1% Rise in Canada’s Climate Pollution

October 2, 2023
62
Northvolt plant in Sweden, Spisen/wikimedia commons

Quebec Lands $7B Battery Gigafactory Investment from Sweden’s Northvolt

October 2, 2023
62
GFDL/Wikimedia Commons

Clean Energy Funding Isn’t Just About Money, Policy Expert Warns

October 2, 2023
39
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/Wikimedia Commons

Climate Change Brings Rapid Ice Loss to Antarctica, Arctic, Swiss Glaciers

October 2, 2023
58
Duffins Agriculture Preserve/North Country House Media via Greenbelt Foundation

Green Space Groups Gear for Bigger Fights After Ontario Reverses Greenbelt Land Grab

September 28, 2023
221
DiscoverEganville/wikimedia commons

EV Rentals to Improve Transportation Access for Ontario Townships

September 28, 2023
82
Next Post
Steve Jurvetson/Wikimedia Commons

Tesla Delays Model 3 Production Target by Three Months

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
The Energy Mix - Energy Central
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Cities & Communities
  • Electric Mobility
  • Heat & Power
  • Community Climate Finance

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}