How Grid Reliability Challenges are Accelerating Innovation in Energy Management

While aging infrastructures and growing demand contribute to power grid instability, other factors also play a role. Unexpected events can cause widespread outages — not just locally, but for entire regions.

Extreme Weather

Significant changes in temperatures, as well as long stretches of hot or cold weather, put a strain not only on power demand, but on grid equipment as well. Weather events like tornados, hurricanes, flooding and severe thunderstorms can knock out power to the surrounding areas they affect. Recently, a typhoon struck Okinawa, Japan, leaving 200,000 households without power.

Geopolitical Disruption

Geopolitical relations and conflicts can have significant ripple effects, including disruption to grid reliability. For instance, a military strike on grid infrastructure in one country can lead to a major power outage in a neighboring region. Trade embargoes and tariffs can trigger fuel shortages and force governments and citizens alike to seek cheaper or more accessible alternatives.  As a result of these types of global scenarios, the EU is diversifying its energy sources to limit its dependence on foreign oil resources. 

Wildlife

Animals also wreak havoc on power grids. In Japan, one snake was responsible for knocking out power to nearly 10,000 homes. In the US, squirrels alone cause nearly half of all wildlife-related power outages. While these examples may conjure amusing visuals, wildlife causes considerable damage to transformers, substations and power lines, leading to costly large-scale outages.

Cybersecurity Threats

In recent years, cyber attacks have targeted critical energy infrastructure facilities across the globe, bringing to light a new threat to the grid. Hackers can gain access to power grids digitally — through ransomware and internet of things (IoT) system vulnerabilities — and remotely disable equipment. Although these incidents are generally underreported, they are steadily increasing, a situation that will likely continue as global grids begin integrating more connected technologies and become more exposed. 

Communities, institutions, companies and entire countries are experimenting with innovative energy initiatives as a result of these disruptive environmental, geopolitical and cyber events. 

Faced with the reality of increasingly unreliable centralized power grids, both public and private sector entities have implemented an array of modern energy approaches that differ significantly around the world.

In Europe, for instance, countries like Germany have embraced the concept of the “all-electric society” with the intent to phase out traditional power sources and implement fully renewable energy systems. But the European approach toward a renewable energy future poses unique challenges to infrastructure. For example, in the summer of 2023, electricity prices in many European countries fell into negative territory due to a high amount of solar power being fed back into the grid while traditional sources were unable to significantly reduce their output, resulting in a power surplus. Moving forward, the challenge and opportunity will be to store this energy for use in the darker winter months.

In the United States to date, renewable energy has been identified as an approach to supplement and support the traditional power grid during periods of high use or critical failure. This helps alleviate the strain of spikes in demand, protect critical infrastructure during downtime and simply minimize potential disruptions. Through energy independence, the U.S. hopes to diversify its energy sources and integrate more reliable backup solutions. 

And in Asia, grid modernization is highly varied. In China, government initiatives have accelerated efforts to update and replace aging grid infrastructure — relying heavily on traditional power sources like coal while installing large solar and wind farms. The Philippines is emphasizing national energy security while Thailand’s focus centers around renewable energy and carbon capture mechanisms.

These global examples illustrate that while motivations and methodologies may differ, there is universal consensus on the importance of grid modernization. 

Smart Grid Technology Offers a Reliable Path Forward

Smart grid technology, which encompasses a broad category of products and systems that work in tandem to modernize power infrastructure, aims to make the power grid more reliable and resilient. Along with replacing aging infrastructure, deploying emerging smart grid technology can provide efficiencies through greater awareness of energy use and allocation and more protection from downtime. Here’s how:

Smart meters replace traditional gas and electricity meters outside homes and provide greater visibility to usage. Many smart meters can send data to an in-home display, offering consumers the opportunity to save money by minimizing use at peak hours. The same data is securely sent to the energy company, enabling providers to better anticipate usage and both prevent and detect power outages. 

In the Asia-Pacific region, the number of installed smart metering devices is projected to reach one billion in 2026 which will deliver benefits to consumers and the power grid. 

Distributed energy resources (DERs) are like miniature power plants in your backyard. A DER is any small-scale, decentralized energy source that can generate or store electricity. Examples include photovoltaic (or solar power) systems, wind turbines, heat pumps and battery energy storage systems (BESSs).  
 
DERs help reduce energy waste by generating electricity near the location where it will be used. They subsequently improve power grid reliability by acting as backup power sources during outages and relieving the grid during peak operation. 

Microgrids are localized electric grids that operate independently of a centralized grid. A series of DERs can make up a microgrid, allowing an area to maintain electricity during an outage of the larger, centralized grid. Microgrids aim to keep critical infrastructure like hospitals and communication networks running during periods of disruption or even to replace traditional energy sources altogether.

A good example of a microgrid community is Borrego Springs, California, USA. This remote town has one 60-mile power line connecting it to the centralized power grid. When severe weather occurs, residents are easily cut off from the main grid; but with its localized smart grid, Borrego Springs can keep the lights on. Other success cases for community microgrids can be found in places like Olst, Netherlands, and in Shuanghu, the Tibet Autonomous Region of China.

Many smart grid technologies are the last line of defense to a larger failure or outage, requiring superior reliability. But the increasing complexity of these technologies and devices pose design challenges. A recent Molex survey of more than 750 electronics design engineers and system architects highlighted that reliability is top of mind for engineers and customers alike. In fact, the vast majority of respondents (96%) have concerns about overall reliability in electronics products.

Molex’s engineering expertise and broad portfolio of high-power solutions ensure smart grid technologies operate reliably when they are needed most. Our global engineering and supply chain resources are ready to help propel energy distribution forward at the earliest stages of product design. 

Interested in learning more about reliability at Molex? Explore our latest resources and view the complete Reliability and Hardware Design Survey Report.