Recommendations for transmission and distribution system offered
News Release
July 20, 2017 
RICHLAND, Wash. - Findings and recommendations to enhance the resilience of the nation's electric power grid were released today in a new congressionally mandated report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
Jeff Dagle, chief electrical engineer at the D.O.E.'s Pacific Northwest National Lab served on a committee charged with recommending strategies and priorities for how the nation can move to a more reliable and resilient transmission and distribution system.
Dagle is one of 17 committee members - and the sole national Lab representative - that authored the NAS report titled "Enhancing the Resiliency of the Nation's Electric Power Transmission and Distribution System."
Dagle will join committee chair Dr. M. Granger Morgan of Carnegie Mellon University and Bill Sanders of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in a webinar at 2:00 p.m. EDT on July 20 to outline the results. The report was presented to Congress and the D.O.E. on July 19.
"Reliability and resilience are closely related but while reliability focuses on service interruptions, resilience is more difficult to measure," said Dagle. "Resiliency is reducing the magnitude and duration of impact to events, and measuring resilience means that you are measuring things that have not yet occurred. It speaks to preparedness."
Over the past 18 months, the committee considered how existing and emerging technological options, including greater reliance on distributed power generation, could impact the reliability and the ability to recover from disruptions to the system.
"Resilient infrastructure is robust to all hazards, ranging from storms to malicious events," said Dagle. "Even from threats that are not envisioned. That is what makes its design challenging and interesting."
The report also identifies non-technological barriers - regulatory, ownership, and financial issues - to implementation of new or expanded technology to enhance the stability, reliability, and resilience of electric transmission and distribution. The committee suggests strategies, key opportunities and priorities, and actions for implementation of the identified technology pathways.
Read more about the report and the committee recommendations in NAS' news release.
Tags: Energy, Smart Grid
Interdisciplinary teams at Pacific Northwest National Lab address many of America's most pressing issues in energy, the environment and national security through advances in basic and applied science. Founded in 1965, PNNL employs 4,400 staff and has an yearly budget of nearly $1 billion. It is managed by Battelle for the D.O.E.'s Office of Science. As the single biggest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, the Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information on PNNL, visit the PNNL News Center, or follow PNNL on Facebook, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter.
