Increasing the Security and Reliability of the US Electricity System

Abstract

This chapter describes how the United States electricity system has been constructed to resist natural hazards, such as ice storms, hurricanes and earthquakes. These natural hazards pose such a difficult challenge to the physical infrastructure that perhaps 90 percent of the physical challenge from terrorists has already been addressed. The new challenges posed by terrorists in the energy sector are attacks on nuclear power plants and their spent fuel and the real-time supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems. This chapter also describes how responding to these challenges and making needed investments are hampered by the deregulation wave. These actions are difficult to take because of the reluctance of state regulators to approve expenditures that will increase electric prices, and even more by the inability of deregulated companies in order to attract capital for the investments and the need to keep their costs low to complete. Since 2000, actions have been taken to reduce the physical and cyber vulnerability of the electricity system, but the pace is slow. Eliminating even the greatest vulnerability is likely to take a decade or more. In the meantime, system survivability should be the primary focus of both government and private efforts.