Transition to a Digital Society: An Antiquated System
Holds Us Back
3.4.04
Peter Curtis, President, Power Management Concepts,
LLC
Introduction
Imagine if an automobile was designed to operate at
a maximum speed of 50 mph and upon reaching 100,000
miles, it was required to speed up to 100 mph, 7 days
per week, 24 hours per day, forever. Conceptually,
this is what has occurred to the demand for power
within the last two decades.
Much of society has been oblivious to the inadequacies
of our current electrical system, but the Blackout
of 2003 served as an international "wake-up call"
to the vulnerability of the power distribution system
and the need for infrastructure upgrades. Today's
electrical distribution system was established over
50 years ago and founded on the premise of transmitting
power to limited analog devices. Revolutionary changes
within the past two decades molded society into a
7x24 digital world. Digital technology penetrated
into every aspect of society and power demands soared
beyond levels anyone could have predicted 50 years
ago.
As the demand for reliable and continuous operations
continues to skyrocket, the facility operators and
the core of buildings' electrical and mechanical infrastructure
seldom change. Unfortunately, the nation's power generation
and electromechanical-based electric grid has not
been able to keep pace with the escalating demand
for reliable, conditioned power required by today's
digital world. The national electrical transmission
network and electrical distribution systems in many
existing buildings were not designed to handle the
burden of today's high-tech society.
United States electrical consumption has nearly
doubled while investments into the US transmission
grid has been reduced by more than half in the past
25 years. (Figure 1) Additionally, we only expect
to see continued technological advancements in the
future, further exhausting antiquated electrical systems.
Figure 1: Transmission Grid Investment vs. Energy
Consumption1
Further complicating the problem, electric generation
in many states has evolved from a stable, stringently
regulated, public industry to a competitive, erratic
business. Cost cutting procedures became prevalent
in states experiencing electric deregulation while
the demand for increased uptime continued to grow.
As a result, power quality and reliability has and
will continue to suffer, only further jeopardizing
the stability and dependability of the entire national
power grid. As we have learned from the Blackout of
2003, a single isolated failure at any location in
electrical distribution system can domino into a nationwide
crisis along the intertwined and complex power grid
network.
In the past, a power outage simply produced lost
work hours and the associated opportunity cost. Today,
even a second long power glitch can wreak havoc, causing
computer crashes, a tremendous loss of costly data,
and damage to online business transactions. Disruption
to public safety facilities, such as hospitals, government
defense agencies, and air traffic control centers,
may even cost human lives. Fifty million people experienced
the aggravation and associated costs of a powerless
life during the Blackout of 2003. The 29-hour blackout
in New York City alone is estimated to cost its economy
over 1 billion dollars.2
Proper facility management and maintenance have
become of utmost importance and concern for all types
of corporations and institutions today. Managers need
to adopt new management and maintenance techniques
to meet the growing demands with diminishing resources.
The key to surviving in the rigorous and high-tech
modern business environment is becoming informed of
the power risks and being active in the measures necessary
to ensure the level of reliability necessary to sustain
your business operations.
Transformation into a Digital Society
There was a time when most corporations and institutions
operated from 9 to 5 and data centers operated with
batch punch cards. In the global market today, all
varieties of corporations and institutions have plunged
into the Information Age to do business 24 hours a
day, everyday of the year. This type of demand requires
high levels of reliability and flexibility, whether
the companies are large Fortune 1000 corporations
or small companies serving global customers. Whatever
the type of industry, most organizations are realizing
that a 24-hour a day operation is imperative to their
business.
The Mission Critical Facilities Engineering field
has evolved significantly from standard office build-outs
that once included minimal electrical loads such as
typewriters, calculators, and task lighting. Mainframe
computers of twenty years ago are now powerful personal
computers located on desktops in every office environment
throughout the world. Devices such as cell phones,
PDAs, and ATMs, have evolved from commodities into
everyday items. There is a universal reliance on electrical
power in the functioning of our daily lives and the
driving force of businesses everywhere.
Information drives business and business creates
information. The most abundant and readily available
source of information is the Internet, which has become
as much a household name as a television. The number
of worldwide Internet users surpassed 530 million
by the end of 2001 and is expected to reach over 1
billion by the end of 2005.3 Final 2002
e-commerce sales were nearly $80 billion and the market
is predicted to flourish into the trillions of dollars
range in coming years. Many companies and a colossal
sum of money rest at the mercy of the mission critical
facilities sustaining them.4
Power protection equipment today must be able to
handle a dangerously wide variety of power disturbances
that can be generated anywhere along growing networks
of servers, routers, gateways, bridges, and other
sensitive electronic components. At the heart of almost
all business lines today is extremely vulnerable computer
hardware that absolutely cannot tolerate an interruption
in power for more than ½ cycle or 8 milliseconds.
As a result of this low tolerance level, much attention
has been devoted to appropriate power conditioning
and management, as well as the associated maintenance,
diligent documentation and training for facility operations.
Evolution of Mission Critical Facilities Engineering
If there was a problem with downtime in the past,
it was usually a result of computer hardware or software
failure. As technology improved, Information Services
began to design their hardware and software systems
with increased reliability and redundancy. Today,
scheduled hardware or software upgrades are the most
likely causes for non-power-related computer downtime;
however, the computer applications are normally launched
on back-up or mirror sites during upgrade periods.
As a result of Information Services' efforts, the
computer systems have become more reliable than the
electrical and mechanical infrastructure that support
them.
Nowadays, downtime is caused primarily by poor power
quality, power distribution disruptions, electrical
grid malfunctions, environmental disturbances, such
as lightning, or even electrostatic discharge (ESD).
Minimizing these failures is the responsibility of
the modern-day Facilities Manager. The modern-day
Facilities Manager has to meet unprecedented demands.
Today's data centers and mission critical facilities
need more than conditioned power; they require computer
grade electricity at all times. While the technology
is available, electrical equipment upgrades have not
been at pace with the growing demands.
It is imperative that the facilities engineering
department be given the tools, capital funds, and
human resources necessary to implement the correct
preventative maintenance programs with the support
of the board of directors. Unfortunately, to date,
the Facilities Manager has often been given limited
resources and support to meet the appropriate reliability
needs of the business. Senior management must understand
the direct correlation between reliability and a positive
bottom line. Once management offers Facilities Engineers
the necessary tools and capital resources, the building
infrastructure may finally begin to concur with the
necessary level of demand and reliability. Until then,
the Facilities Manager cannot protect against a wide
variety of hazards that may paralyze the business
at any given time.
Corporations and institutions need to retain a competent
Facilities Engineering staff. The electrical distribution
systems in mission critical facilities today are so
complex that it could take a minimum of one year to
fully understand and integrate the systems from a
technical, operational, and administrative standpoint.
The Facilities Manager has become one of the most
vital employees in any given office.
As New York City Mayor Bloomberg mentioned in a
radio address during the Blackout of 2003, it is crucial
that all major corporations contain a well-trained
facilities staff prepared for all types of emergencies.
It was these Engineers who worked overtime during
the blackout and minimized financial damage to mission
critical businesses and sustained operations of hospitals,
air traffic controllers, and radio transmission, and
utilities to ensure public safety.
Risk Tolerance and Growing Cost of Downtime
In order to design a building with the appropriate
level of reliability, a company first needs to assess
the cost of downtime and determine their associated
risk tolerance. Downtime can no longer be equated
to power availability and cannot be measured in terms
of "one nine - six nines" (90% - 99.9999%),
as recovery time is now a significant component of
downtime. Today, recovery time is typically many times
longer than utility outages as operations have become
much more intricate and complex. Is a 32 second facilities
outage really only 32 seconds? Is it perhaps 2 hours
or 2 days? The real question is how long does it take
to fully recover from the 32 second outage and return
to normal operational status?
Facility engineers and senior management need to
evaluate the cost of operating with obsolete electrical
distribution systems and the associated risk of an
outage. When the potential for such losses exists,
serious capital expenditures to upgrade the electrical
distribution system are monetarily justified by senior
management. The cost of downtime in vast industries
has expanded tremendously in recent years, as business
has become completely computer dependent and the systems
have become increasingly complex. (Figure 2)
Imagine you are the manager responsible for a major
data center that provides approval of checks and other
online electronic transactions for American Express,
MasterCard, and Visa. On the biggest shopping day
of the year, the day after Thanksgiving, you find
out that the data center has lost its utility service.
Your first reaction is that the data center has a
UPS and standby generator so there is no problem,
however, the standby generator has not started due
to a fuel problem and the data center will shutdown
in 15 minutes, which is the amount of time the UPS
system has in battery power at full load. The penalty
for not being proactive is loss of revenue, potentially
major clients, and, if the problem is large enough,
your business could be at risk of financially collapsing.
The above problem could have been identified and
prevented if the standby generator was exercised every
week for 30 minutes. Precautionary protection is often
worth the extra expense. There are about three times
as many UPS systems in use today than there were 10
years ago, and many more companies are still discovering
their worth after a power line disturbance takes critical
equipment off-line and data is lost. Do you want the
electrical outage to be scheduled or unscheduled?
Serious facilities engineers use comprehensive preventive
maintenance procedures to avoid being caught off-guard.
Many companies do not consider installing back-up
equipment until after an incident has already occurred.
During the months following the Blackout of 2003,
the industry experienced an increase number of requests
for the installation of UPS systems and Standby Generators.
Small and large businesses alike learned how susceptible
they are to power disturbances and the associated
costs of not being prepared. Some businesses that
are not typically considered "mission critical"
learned that they cannot afford to be unprotected
during a power outage. For example, the Blackout of
2003 destroyed 250 million dollars of perishable food
in New York City alone.6 Businesses of
every type everywhere are reassessing their level
of risk tolerance and cost of downtime.
Electric Utility Deregulation
Within the past few years, some states have seen the
deregulation, or restructuring, of many electric utilities.
(Figure 3) We have also seen the emergence of retail
wheeling, or the process of delivering energy supplied
by one party over a transmission system owned and
controlled by another party. While deregulation and
retail wheeling are supposed to provide more choices
to the consumer, there are no signs that this will
equate to greater power quality and reliability; in
fact, evidence shows that power quality has been and
will continue to be adversely affected. Changes brought
about by this type of restructuring only increase
the importance of the facility manager.
Deregulation has already taken its toll as numerous
power reliability events took place during the summer
of 1999 in New York, Chicago, New England, Mid-Atlantic
States and South-Central States and the Blackout of
2003. These regions experienced severe voltage fluctuations
and power outages during peak usage, as utilities
were not prepared to meet excessive demands and react
to emergency conditions.
As the electric utility industry has transformed
into a competitive market, cost cutting strategies
have been adopted and less resources have been allocated
for reliability measures. A January 2000 Department
of Energy (DOE) study of the events during the summer
of 1999 stated that electric utility deregulation
has caused significant degradation in the North American
power grid reliability during peak usage periods.
The DOE cited aging infrastructure and increased demand
for power as the primary causes of stress on the transmission
and distribution system that led to the interruption
of service. The study concluded that,"State and
federal regulatory policies are not providing adequate
incentives for utilities to maintain and upgrade facilities
to provide an acceptable level of reliability."
Without mandated supervision from regulatory agencies,
electric utilities are encountering difficulty in
balancing reliability and price to compete in a deregulated
market. Most competitive utilities are attempting
to run operations as close to maximum capacity as
possible with minimal or no spinning reserves (readily
available idling generation equipment) and standby
generation capacity. Twenty years ago, however, it
was likely to see utilities with spinning reserves
in the range of 25% of maximum capacity. Today, utilities
are streamlining costs and operating with considerably
less spinning reserves than in the past, thus increasing
the probability of outages and brownouts, as well
as the need for standby power systems. (Figure 4)
In the past few summers, California has also experienced
a severe energy crisis as a direct result of the transition
to a competitive electricity marketplace. In the past,
state regulators and local utilities were responsible
for ensuring an adequate and reliable energy supply;
however, in a deregulated market, no organization
holds such responsibility. The availability of energy
is solely based on market pressures, and with a rate
freeze on utility service, there is little incentive
for customers to limit energy consumption, even during
a time of crisis. Californian utilities were left
with no resources, nor the incentives, to attempt
to meet booming demand as seen in the past few summers.
The DOE predicts that numerous power reliability
events will continue to emerge until significant measures
are taken to improve reliability of competitive retail
utilities. In order to compensate for recent power
degradation, some have suggested that a government
agency be established to act as a supervisory organization
to ensure that all competing utilities are supplying
a suitable level of reliability. Others believe that
states need to regress to regulated utilities in order
to furnish the level of reliability necessary in today's
7x24 digital society.
The Aftermath of the Blackout of 2003: What do we
do next? It is quite apparent that our existing electrical
grid is an archaic and inadequate system that does
not effectively meet the reliability needs of today's
digital society. The electrical grid is a sprawling
network of over 235,000 miles of cables, at times
carrying 230,000 volts or more with the backbone of
our economy and safety resting on its availability.
While the complexity of the system does allow for
redundancy, the Blackout of 2003 demonstrated that
failures are quickly augmented into massive catastrophes
along this interconnected network and how quickly
our country can be crippled when power is interrupted.
While engineers have always been conscious of the
threat, power outages like the Blackout of 2003 are
often required to remind the general public just how
vulnerable and dependent everyone is upon our obsolete
electrical grid. Our decision makers need to ensure
that we are protected and prepared so that a crisis
like this never happens again. Many businesses discovered
the cost of a blackout of this magnitude and in the
process also realized just how invincibility we were
as we quickly vanished into darkness.
In the aftermath of the Blackout of 2003 there was
a resurgence of national awareness for the need to
renovate the current power grid infrastructure. The
lives of over 50 million people came to halt that
Thursday afternoon and billions of dollars of business
was lost. The voices of dissatisfied citizens and
business owners have and will continue to be heard
on the international platform and utilities must respond.
With unforeseen public support and the abrupt emergence
of the electric grid into the political arena, a much
larger percentage of the local, state, federal, and
private sector budgets will likely be allocated to
the reconstruction of the current electric distribution
system. Over the next 20-30 years, the government
and privately owned utilities will have the opportunity
to rectify many of the drawbacks inherent in the current
electrical distribution system. In addition to redesigning
the means of transmission, the utilities will have
the opportunity to expand capacity with new electric
generation systems to meet the growing demands of
years to come.
During the development of increased generating capacity,
national reconsideration of the generation sector
could encourage further use of environmentally friendly
or "green" power. Photovoltaics, fuel cells,
wind power, and geothermal energy are common examples
of recent attempts at green power. These systems are
considerably more environmentally friendly than existing
fossil fuel electric generation. A movement towards
green power may help decelerate the progression of
global warming and the destructive influence of fossil
fuels from emissions of greenhouse gases. While some
of these systems have sporadically appeared throughout
the world, green power is far from mainstream, especially
in the United States. Implementation of environmentally
friendly power generation will be a long process and
will need to be integrated with the existing infrastructure.
A one percent annual increase of green power will
gradually diminish our national reliance on fossil
fuels, producing political and financial incentives.
The diversity of our electric generation sector will
reduce our reliance on fuel from foreign markets and
diminish U.S. vulnerability to oil price spikes.
As apparent from the Blackout of 2003, a massive
overhaul of the current electrical infrastructure
is necessary to improve reliability to meet modern
digital demands. However, no matter the type of power
generation or the amount of money dedicated to renovating
the electrical infrastructure, no system could ever
guarantee 100% availability. As a result, the job
of the Mission Critical Facilities Engineer will persist
indefinitely as the sustaining force for 7x24 mission
critical operations.
The Blackout of 2003 demonstrated to government
officials and corporate society that the backbone
of the economy, national security, and the public
safety of all citizens depend on reliable power and
the infrastructure delivering it. Billions of dollars
in business was lost and public safety was compromised
as a result of a false sense of security, inadequate
backup power protection, and insufficient electrical
system maintenance.
As known by experts within the mission critical
arena for years and made public by the recent blackout,
the current antiquated electrical distribution system
cannot meet the demands and reliability needs of today's
7x24 digital society. Managers of all type and size
organizations and institutions need to be well-versed
in power risk management and take an aggressive proactive
approach to minimize safety hazards and financial
damage during a power failure. It is not a question
of preparing for if, but rather, for when the next
power outage will affect the continuous flow of your
business and daily life.
1 Source: Edison Electric Institute;
U.S. Department of Energy
2 New York City Comptroller William Thompson
3 Computer Industry Almanac
4 Forrester Research
5 Prepared by a disaster-planning consultant
of Contingency Planning Research
6 New York City Comptroller William Thompson
7 Source: Status of State Electric Industry
Restructuring Activity, U.S. Department of Energy
8 Electric Power Annual 2001, U.S. Department
of Energy
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