Figure 1: Hill AFB System Average Interruption Duration Index values 2015-2021 Another case study of resilience for an electrical system is at Aberdeen Proving Grounds. There the government chose to privatize the system in 2012. The new system owner and the Aberdeen team partnered to plan and execute a total rebuild of much of the installation’s electrical distribution backbone. Thanks partially to the new components and controls, the average outage duration decreased from 300 minutes in late 2013 to 100 minutes in early 2022. The system uses new technology to bounce back more quickly from significant events like when Hurricane Ida roared up the East Coast in August 2021. A short illustration about the IEEE duration index may be helpful here. Customer minutes represent the overall impact of an event. A two-hour outage affecting 10 customers would tally 1,200 customer minutes, and a shorter 30-minute outage affecting 50 customers would tally 1,500 customer minutes. The System Average Interruption Duration Index, aka SAIDI, tracks the trend of customer minutes over a given interval, usually a year. Figure 1 illustrates the trend of reduced outage impact for the data at Hill AFB. For an outage duration metric, down is good! There was nothing magical there beyond a sense of ownership, component recapitalization and some focused automation technology. The key was that leaders paid attention to performance metrics, identified trends and applied some available tools. The result was a significantly improved electrical system resilience. RESILIENCE TIPS AND TRICKS “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.” — Friedrich Nietzsche World events from 2020 through early 2022 tested individual and social resilience. A global pandemic stressed many systems that provide the food, shelter, transportation and entertainment that humans count on for daily life. Significant weather events tested infrastructure — especially power systems. Finally, the war in Ukraine provided lessons for future generations about surviving and bouncing back. The lessons from all these events are available through many sources. This article highlighted some of the information resources for energy resilience. While this is just the tip of the information iceberg (and we do not have a virtual metaverse curator available at our command), there are several places we can go for guidance. This concept applies whether we need help preparing for an event, responding to an emergency or recovering from a knockdown. Seven recommendations for improving resilience include the following actions: 1. Keep a log of the energy resilience resources available to you. Update it frequently. 2. Adopt best practices and lessons learned. Many are shared on resilience websites. 3. Use asset management tools to track the condition of your system components. 4. Track the performance of your systems and invest in the highest priority requirements. 5. Share your resilience stories. 6. Track communities of practice such as the Society of American Military Engineers Resilience Group. There are tremendous opportunities to benchmark and share lessons. 7. Be a resilience beacon. For example, practice disaster preparedness at home and store flashlights and water. 30
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