How Do You Prepare the Grid for Climate Threats?
California recently mandated that utilities prepare for increased wildfires, droughts, floods, and other extreme conditions associated with expected climate change. Leveraging a rigorous, first-of-its-kind performance-based engineering framework, Exponent partnered with Southern California Edison (SCE), the primary electricity provider across much of Southern and Eastern California, to complete the state’s first climate adaptation and vulnerability assessment (CAVA).
By quantifying how climate change increases risk to thousands of electric power transmission assets (conductors, poles, substations, etc.), Exponent and SCE were able to uncover insights into different risk and failure scenarios. This deeper understanding empowered SCE to make risk-informed decisions about short- and long-term strategic capital investment priorities and understand the impacts of climate change to the most vulnerable communities in its service territory.
