Spatiotemporal distribution of power outages with climate events and social vulnerability in the USA

Power outages threaten public health. While outages will likely increase with climate change, an aging electrical grid, and increased energy demand, little is known about their frequency and distribution within states. Here, we characterize 2018–2020 outages, finding an average of 520 million custom...

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Veröffentlicht in:Nature communications Jg. 14; H. 1; S. 2470 - 13
Hauptverfasser: Do, Vivian, McBrien, Heather, Flores, Nina M., Northrop, Alexander J., Schlegelmilch, Jeffrey, Kiang, Mathew V., Casey, Joan A.
Format: Journal Article
Sprache:Englisch
Veröffentlicht: London Nature Publishing Group UK 29.04.2023
Nature Publishing Group
Nature Portfolio
Schlagworte:
692/499
704/172
706/4066
Climate Change
Cyclones
Disaster management
Disasters
Electric power
Electric power grids
Emergency preparedness
Energy demand
Epidemiology
Extreme weather
Hot Temperature
Humanities and Social Sciences
Medical equipment
Michigan
multidisciplinary
Outages
Power failures
Public Health
Resource allocation
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Social Vulnerability
Spatial distribution
Temporal distribution
Tropical cyclones
Weathering
Michigan
United States > US
ISSN:2041-1723, 2041-1723
Online-Zugang:Volltext
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Zusammenfassung:Power outages threaten public health. While outages will likely increase with climate change, an aging electrical grid, and increased energy demand, little is known about their frequency and distribution within states. Here, we characterize 2018–2020 outages, finding an average of 520 million customer-hours total without power annually across 2447 US counties (73.7% of the US population). 17,484 8+ hour outages (a medically-relevant duration with potential health consequences) and 231,174 1+ hour outages took place, with greatest prevalence in Northeastern, Southern, and Appalachian counties. Arkansas, Louisiana, and Michigan counties experience a dual burden of frequent 8+ hour outages and high social vulnerability and prevalence of electricity-dependent durable medical equipment use. 62.1% of 8+ hour outages co-occur with extreme weather/climate events, particularly heavy precipitation, anomalous heat, and tropical cyclones. Results could support future large-scale epidemiology studies, inform equitable disaster preparedness and response, and prioritize geographic areas for resource allocation and interventions. The authors find within-day, seasonal, and regional differences in county-level power outages from 2018–2020. Outages commonly co-occur with climate events. Counties in the south and Michigan faced high social and medical vulnerabilities and outages.
Bibliographie:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
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ISSN:2041-1723
2041-1723
DOI:10.1038/s41467-023-38084-6