If you’re wondering why interest in microgrids is growing at a rapid clip, look no further than a new report “Billion Dollar Losses, Trillion Dollar Threats: The Cost of Climate Change.”
Published by PSE Healthy Energy, a nonprofit policy research institute, and Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2), a nonprofit economic and environmental group, the report offers a state-by-state analysis of the cost of disasters, including hurricanes, storms, drought, flooding, wildfires and extreme freezes.
Over the last five years, these events have cost the US $765 billion and led to 4,500 deaths, and since 1980 losses have totaled $2.2 trillion, according to the report.
“Climate change is no longer just an environmental issue or health issue or social justice issue,” said Bob Keefe, E2 executive director. “It’s all those things. But it’s also now a daunting economic issue, and it’s hitting every American in the pocketbook, no matter where they live, what they do or how they vote.”
In a sign that the problem is worsening, the report notes that the losses over the last five years were eight times greater than in the 1980s. From 2017-2021, America experienced its four most expensive wildfires, two of its three most expensive hurricanes, and its most expensive winter storm. (The report does not include the recent Hurricane Ian, which pummeled Florida in September.)
Power outages follow disasters
In some cases, one disaster precipitates the next. The California wildfires offer an example.
“Utilities across California have started to de-energize power lines (controlled grid outages to shut off electricity through transmission lines in specific areas) to prevent wildfires, which itself has likely caused billions of dollars more in economic impacts from business interruptions and poses a risk to many populations, such as those dependent on electricity to power medical equipment,” the report said.
Because disasters often lead to power outages and microgrids avert outages, there is a (sad) adage among microgrid insiders, “To track microgrid growth, follow the carnage.” Below we compare the report’s disaster map with a microgrid map by the US Department of Energy. The adage appears to largely hold true, particularly in two of the biggest disaster states in the lower 48, California and Texas, which clock some of the greatest microgrid activity.
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