ASME Columbia Basin Section: Toward a Resilient Electric Power Grid

Description

Join the Columbia Basin Section and speaker Jeff Dagle on Wednesday, April 14th at 7pm for a presentation on electric power grid resilience. The interconnected North American power system that underpins our modern society has been recognized as the top engineering achievement of the 20th century. Access to affordable and reliable electricity enables many of the things that we take for granted today and has enabled unparalleled economic growth and significantly enhanced our quality of life. And while this vast power system remains affordable and reliable now and into the foreseeable future, there nevertheless remains potential hazards that threaten the resilience of this critical infrastructure. This presentation will introduce the engineering basics of the power grid, discuss prior blackouts and lessons learned gleaned by engineers, delve into resilience concepts, and summarize steps being undertaken to understand and enhance power system resilience in the future. Jeff Dagle has worked at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland Washington, operated by Battelle for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), since 1989. During that time has had led numerous projects in the areas of transmission reliability and security.