DVRPC Climate Adaptation Forum – Preparing the Electric Grid for a Changing Climate

Electricity powers our communications, lights our homes and businesses, propels our trains (and some cars and buses!), and keeps our hospitals running—literally keeping people alive.  Plans for our clean energy future depend on electricity generated by low- or no carbon sources to move our vehicles, as well as heat and cool our homes.  We take for granted that electricity will be there when we need it.  

Yet as central as it is to our lives, we simply take for granted that the electricity will be there when we need it. Climate change presents challenges to the reliability of our electricity supply.  These include downed lines due to storms, electrical infrastructure failing due to flooding or extreme heat, and failures due to circuit overloads as demand peaks in hotter summer heat waves and winter cold snaps. They also include loss of supply from nuclear power marginalized when cooling water sources are either too warm or dried up due to drought.

This forum will discuss investments being made by utilities to prepare their infrastructure for the threats of climate change, and the measures that institutions, including local governments, can take to protect their electricity supply. 

This will be an interactive forum, with ample time for discussion and questions with the panelists.

Panelists:

Neil Weisenfeld, P.E., Senior Energy Resilience Expert, ICF

Charles Viemeister, Project Manager—Strategic Planning, Con Edison

Eric Stein, Manager of New Technology Programs, PECO

Panel Moderator 

Robert Graff, Manager, Office of Energy and Climate Change Initiatives, DVRPC

Please register at: dvrpc.ticketleap.com/GridResiliency 

There is no cost to attend this forum.  For questions, please contact Rob Graff at rgraff@dvrpc.org.

Approved for 1.5 APA AICP CM credits.

Certificates of Attendance will be provided upon request