{"id":3321,"date":"2020-09-22T13:44:54","date_gmt":"2020-09-22T20:44:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stopthecrime.net\/wp\/?p=3321"},"modified":"2020-09-22T13:44:57","modified_gmt":"2020-09-22T20:44:57","slug":"black-sky-event-power-outages-eis-council-%e2%80%a2-protection-initiatives-resilience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stopthecrime.net\/wp\/2020\/09\/22\/black-sky-event-power-outages-eis-council-%e2%80%a2-protection-initiatives-resilience\/","title":{"rendered":"BLACK SKY EVENT – Power Outages – EIS Council \u2022 Protection Initiatives – Resilience"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

https:\/\/www.eiscouncil.org\/Protection_Category.aspx?catId=29<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Resilience<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Resilience<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

As concerns grow over severe Black Sky hazards,\nlifeline utilities and State and Federal government agencies have been\nsystematically expanding initiatives seeking to mitigate such extreme\nevents.  Resilience planning and investment represent the foundation on\nwhich any such mitigation efforts must be built.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As has often been said, \u201c20-20\nhindsight\u201d following an extreme event comes too late to make the strategic\ninvestments that could have reduced the impact of such an event.  <\/strong>Nevertheless,\nplanning and implementing such measures is often challenging, requiring\ndecision makers and stakeholders to make investments to address projected risks\nwhich, while serious, may yield little or no immediate benefit.  And\nthough hazards that have occurred with reasonable frequency suffer less from\nthis investment challenge, emerging threats \u2013 even when projected consequences\nare extreme \u2013 are a much greater challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Increasingly, this issue is being addressed by\nexpanding the use of tabletop exercises to both simulate hazards and allow key\nstakeholders to explore the impact of such hazards, while considering the\nbenefits and projected needs for resilience measures.  The EPRO Black Sky\nHazard Event Simulation Project represents a new example of such exercises,\nhelping  utilities, government agencies and other stakeholders evaluate\nthe needs and benefits of specific resilience investments for Black Sky\nHazards.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

E-Threats:  An example of the growing focus on resilience<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an example of this expanding focus, resilience\nstrategies for E-threats (EMP and GMD), as the newest examples of emerging\nBlack Sky hazards, are receiving increasing industry attention, and are a\nspecial focus of the hazard protection section of the EPRO Handbook, Volume 1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A key finding of recent studies, including the reports of the\nrecently reestablished Congressional EMP Commission, is damage caused by both\nEMP and GMD, while affecting very large regions, is expected for only a\nfraction of exposed, vulnerable electrical and electronic components.  EMP,\nfor example, will not<\/em> destroy all electrical and\nelectronic components, devices and systems in an affected area.  While\ncomplex, computer-intensive control systems (including unprotected power grid\ncontrol systems) will typically fail or be disrupted, most electrical and\nelectronic hardware in the region will likely survive.  This result is\ncrucial, providing a foundation for planning a strategic framework for\nresilience, focusing on targeted, cost-effective investments to provide\nstrategic, protected “enclaves\u201d or protection of restoration-critical\ninfrastructure. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The E-PRO Handbook discusses this resilience\nstrategy along with recommended companion measures for accelerated restoration,\nsuch as protection for control centers and selected, critical long lead equipment,\nproperly stored and staged spares, and EMP-protected emergency vehicles,\ntooling and communication gear.  Implementing such strategies involves\nplanning for a cost-effective combination of mitigation investments,\noperational measures and comprehensive power restoration planning. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Expanding the focus on the power grid\u2019s Black Start system:<\/strong>\nA critical requirement for Black Sky Hazard resilience <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The core resilience foundation of the three\nElectric Interconnections that make up the U.S. national power grid is the\nBlack Start system: Generating stations and cranking paths designed to be\ncapable of restarting \u2013 and functioning as a starting point for grid restart \u2013\nfollowing a local or regional power outage.  This system has been the\nsubject of careful planning and investment, and is properly considered a\nreliable and essential basis for resilience of the power grid from the full\nrange of \u201cGray Sky\u201d hazards experienced in modern times.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Black Sky \/ Black Start Protection Initiative (BSPI)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is vitally important to note – that\nthe Black Start system was not designed to address Black Sky Hazards.  The\nBlack Sky \/ Black Start Protection Initiative<\/strong> (BSPITM<\/sup>) examines Black Sky- associated limitations of\nthe Black Start system, along with recommended enhancements and system\narchitecture adaptations, as a starting point to consider upgrades to that\nsystem to address the extreme hazard scenarios represented by Black Sky\nHazards.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Black Sky Power Grid Restoration<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

An essential feature of any resilience plan is companion\nplanning for effective use of the resilience investments.  For the power\ngrid, for example, while it is certainly vital to ensure that essential tools\nand assets needed for Black Sky Hazards will be available when needed, these\ncapabilities will only be effective if they are embedded in upgraded\nrestoration and training plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

# # # # One finding emerging from EPRO ESC meetings\nhas been a concern, voiced frequently by senior power company executives, for\navailability of trained, specialized labor to handle the expected,\nunprecedented restoration workload.  These executives have pointed out\nthat, typically, trained engineering teams capable of handling projected\nhazards like Cyber or EMP are already, in normal, Blue Sky Day scenarios,\nsignificantly understaffed.  In Black Sky Hazard scenarios, they point\nout, staff availability is likely to be significantly reduced, precisely at a\ntime when far greater trained, expert engineering teams will be absolutely\nessential.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Gray Sky Hazards, a mechanism to address this\nconcern is now being explored by the power industry:  Expanding Mutual\nAssistance programs, currently designed to provide line crews and \u201cbucket\ntrucks\u201d to move between companies and geographic regions to help address local\nor regional disasters, to include a similar capability to exchange engineering\nteams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

# # # # For Black Sky Hazards, such an expansion of\nconventional Mutual Assistance programs, while important and helpful, will not\ncome even close to providing sufficient capability.  With widely\ndistributed, multi-region power grid hardware and IT and OT system disruption\nand damage, finding, isolating and repairing problems will require far larger\nlevels of trained engineering staff, and with many regions facing the same\nneeds, availability of engineers from other utilities will be limited.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The CPR Engineering Team model<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In these scenarios, one highly leveraging approach\nwill be to build plans for supplementing staff, to address such emergencies,\nfrom outside the power industry.  The CPR Engineering Team Initiative lays\nout examples or templates for such a mechanism.  Based on plans for\nadvance certification and periodic training of engineers with expertise in the\nappropriate disciplines, the CPR model would provide a capability for added\nengineering and technician staff, to expand the capabilities and be closely\ndirected and utilized by the normal, internal corporate engineering\nteams that will be in very short supply for such emergencies.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

https:\/\/www.eiscouncil.org\/Protection_Category.aspx?catId=29 Resilience Resilience As concerns grow over severe Black Sky hazards, lifeline utilities and State and Federal government agencies have been systematically expanding initiatives seeking to mitigate such extreme events.  Resilience planning and investment represent the foundation on which any such mitigation efforts must be built. As has often been said, \u201c20-20 hindsight\u201d following an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grid-down"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stopthecrime.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stopthecrime.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stopthecrime.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stopthecrime.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stopthecrime.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3321"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stopthecrime.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3322,"href":"https:\/\/stopthecrime.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3321\/revisions\/3322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stopthecrime.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stopthecrime.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stopthecrime.net\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}