Is poverty a factor that impacts electrical power outage resilience in the United States? For this project we want to begin to build tools and methods that can reveal whether there are correlations between the length of a power outage and the socioeconomics of a county.
Heatwaves can be life threatening, so it is important to restore power as quickly as possible, especially for vulnerable populations. There was a heatwave in June of 2016 in the South-western part of the United States, affecting Arizona, Nevada, and California. Loads on the power grids became critically high as people boosted air-conditioning and other power utilities to deal with the heat. In many counties the power-grid was overwhelmed, and the power went out. Crews worked around the clock to restore the power and to try to keep it on. Cities work out plans to try to limit consumption.
In this project, participants will use the data set collected by the ORNL Eagle-I project that contains the number of customers without power per county during the heatwave. Along with power data, participants will have access to data that shows the average temperature per county during the heatwave and data showing various measures of socioeconomic and age demographics per county. Participants will analyze correlations between power restoration data and poverty level to identify whether there exist any inequities between counties in energy access and restoration.
Project Leaders and Trainers:
Suzanne Parete-Koon
Kellen Leland
Image source: https://www.ornl.gov/blog/ornl-tools-help-ensure-energy-supply