Issue Building power systems that anticipate and withstand climate shocks

Summary

The author sees two technological directions for coping with climate stress. The first is the ability to anticipate and prepare for shocks, using digital control technology that integrates weather and grid data in real time to identify risk zones in advance and flexibly redeploy generation resources. The second is the ability to endure shocks when they arrive, by rapidly separating the grid so damage does not spread, sustaining critical demand with distributed resources and restoring service quickly. Microgrids, energy storage systems and automatic fault-isolation systems are named as representative tools. The response to climate stress is therefore framed not as building more power plants but as designing systems that keep working under uncertainty. This is presented as the first condition of energy security in the climate era.