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On behalf of the Quadrennial Energy Review (QER) Task Force, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine hosted a workshop on February 8-9, 2016, titled "Electricity Use in Rural and Islanded Communities." The objective of the workshop was to help the QER Task Force public outreach efforts by focusing on communities with unique electricity challenges. The workshop explored challenges and opportunities for reducing electricity use and associated greenhouse gas emissions while improving electricity system reliability and resilience in rural and islanded communities. This report summarizes the presentation and discussion of the workshop.

On behalf of the Quadrennial Energy Review (QER) Task Force, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine hosted a workshop on February 8-9, 2016, titled "Electricity Use in Rural and Islanded Communities." The objective of the workshop was to help the QER Task Force public outreach efforts by focusing on communities with unique electricity challenges. The workshop explored challenges and opportunities for reducing electricity use and associated greenhouse gas emissions while improving electricity system reliability and resilience in rural and islanded communities. This report summarizes the presentation and discussion of the workshop.

Americans' safety, productivity, comfort, and convenience depend on the reliable supply of electric power. The electric power system is a complex "cyber-physical" system composed of a network of millions of components spread out across the continent. These components are owned, operated, and regulated by thousands of different entities. Power system operators work hard to assure safe and reliable service, but large outages occasionally happen. Given the nature of the system, there is simply no way that outages can be completely avoided, no matter how much time and money is devoted to such an effort. The system's reliability and resilience can be improved but never made perfect. Thus, system owners, operators, and regulators must prioritize their investments based on potential benefits. Enhancing the Resilience of the Nation's Electricity System focuses on identifying, developing, and implementing strategies to increase the power system's resilience in the face of events that can cause large-area, long-duration outages: blackouts that extend over multiple service areas and last several days or longer. Resilience is not just about lessening the likelihood that these outages will occur. It is also about limiting the scope and impact of outages when they do occur, restoring power rapidly afterwards, and learning from these experiences to better deal with events in the future.

In December 2011 and January 2012, Scotland was subject to numerous storms that caused damage to homes, road and rail infrastructure, as well as leaving tens of thousands of residents without a power supply. In some cases it took more than three days before power was restored. Although all of Scotland was affected, it appears that the most severe damage occurred in the Highlands and Islands. The Committee's inquiry focussed on: the frequency and severity of weather-related power cuts in Scotland; the consequences of such power cuts to individuals, businesses and public sector services; the current condition and technological state of Scotland's electricity transmission network, and what conditions it is built to withstand; the advantages and disadvantages of using an alternative electricity transmission infrastructure, particularly regarding its vulnerability to weather-related damage; whether the response provided by the energy companies was satisfactory; and how the regulation of transmission network operators and distribution network Operators impacts upon investment in Scotland's electricity transmission network. The Committee conludes that while blackouts following severe weather incidents can never be completely eliminated, one way that they can be minimised is by ensuring that the grid is in a robust and well maintained state before any such incidents occur. The increase in renewable energy generation also offers opportunities for networks to be less reliant on single vulnerable electricity lines to serve remote communities. The value of compensation for loss of power currently offered and the conditions under which it applies should be improved.