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Written by John Egan for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--U.S. energy infrastructure received a grade of C- in the quadrennial report card issued by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) (Reston, Virginia), released on Wednesday. That grade is an improvement over the score that sector garnered in the group's 2017 report card, and the higher grade reflects electricity companies' heavy investments in infrastructure in recent years. The score for energy infrastructure is better than the ASCE's assessment of dams (D), roads (D) and aviation (D+), but it trails the marks given to bridges (C), ports (B--) and rail systems (B).
Speaking about U.S. infrastructure in general, ASCE's 2021 Report Card for America's Infrastructure said: "While we've made incremental immediate gains in some of the infrastructure categories, our long-term investment gap continues to grow. We're still just paying about half of our infrastructure bill, and the total investment gap has gone from $2.1 trillion over 10 years, to nearly $2.59 trillion over 10 years."
The report was released as President Joe Biden's administration is pulling together elements of the infrastructure spending plan it intends to submit to Congress.
In a virtual conference held to reveal and discuss the report, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan (R) said he sees opportunity for bipartisan Congressional consensus on infrastructure spending. "It brings together Democrats and Republicans, business and labor," he said. "If we can't find consensus on infrastructure, I'm not sure we can find consensus on anything." He added that every $1 invested in infrastructure yields about $1.69 in increased economic activity.
ASCE released a companion report earlier this year, Failure to Act: Economic Impacts of Status Quo Investment Across Infrastructure Systems, which said that failure to close this infrastructure investment gap will bring serious economic consequences. Specifically, by 2039, this report said, continuation of this infrastructure investment gap will cost the U.S. more than 3 million jobs, drain $10 trillion from U.S. gross domestic product (GDP), and reduce this country's exports by $2.4 trillion.
With a grade of C-, the ASCE report card said U.S. energy infrastructure is doing better than other sectors. It noted that the electricity business has invested significant sums to meet customer demands, but even greater investments are needed to improve the reliability of the transmission & distribution (T&D) systems and accommodate new demands. Customers expect "always on" power, but climate change will create severe weather that cuts against that expectation, the report said. The growing popularity of electric vehicles (EVs) likely will place new burdens on an already over-taxed delivery system, the report added.
The U.S. electricity delivery network is "an aging patchwork" of power generation facilities, 600,000 miles of backbone transmission lines and about 5.5 million miles of local distribution lines, the report observed: "The majority of the nation's grid is aging, with some components a century old--far past their 50-year life expectancy--and others, including 70% of T&D lines, are well into the second half of their lifespans."
The nation's electric distribution lines are "a key failure point ... in terms of electric reliability," the report continues. More than nine in 10 (92%) of all service disruptions occur on electric distribution networks, which faces multiple challenges including aging equipment, severe weather events and shifting consumption patterns.
Power outages cost the average U.S. household between $28 and $169 per year, the ASCE report card report noted. But U.S. data centers face far higher costs for power outages--about $8,851 per minute as of 2016, it added.
Click on the image at right to see a chart of power outages between 2008 and 2017, and the number of people affected by those outages.
The report observes that U.S. electric companies have invested more than $285 billion in T&D upgrades since Superstorm Sandy in 2012. Some of those investments went to "hardening the energy grid to make it more resilient to future storms, including investing in new and upgraded T&D infrastructure, improving efficiency and reliability, and enhancing protection to enable a more secure, flexible and resilient electric system."
ASCE said U.S. annual spending on high-voltage transmission lines grew from $15.6 billion in 2012 to $21.9 billion in 2017, while annual spending on distribution systems grew 54% over the past two decades. But it sees an even-greater need for investments in T&D infrastructure "to accommodate the changing energy landscape, as delivery becomes distributed and renewables grow."
Industrial Info Resources (IIR), with global headquarters in Sugar Land, Texas, six offices in North America and 12 international offices, is the leading provider of global market intelligence specializing in the industrial process, heavy manufacturing and energy markets. Industrial Info's quality-assurance philosophy, the Living Forward Reporting Principle, provides up-to-the-minute intelligence on what's happening now, while constantly keeping track of future opportunities. Follow IIR on: Facebook - Twitter - LinkedIn. For more information on our coverage, send inquiries to info@industrialinfo.com or visit us online at http://www.industrialinfo.com.
Speaking about U.S. infrastructure in general, ASCE's 2021 Report Card for America's Infrastructure said: "While we've made incremental immediate gains in some of the infrastructure categories, our long-term investment gap continues to grow. We're still just paying about half of our infrastructure bill, and the total investment gap has gone from $2.1 trillion over 10 years, to nearly $2.59 trillion over 10 years."
The report was released as President Joe Biden's administration is pulling together elements of the infrastructure spending plan it intends to submit to Congress.
In a virtual conference held to reveal and discuss the report, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan (R) said he sees opportunity for bipartisan Congressional consensus on infrastructure spending. "It brings together Democrats and Republicans, business and labor," he said. "If we can't find consensus on infrastructure, I'm not sure we can find consensus on anything." He added that every $1 invested in infrastructure yields about $1.69 in increased economic activity.
ASCE released a companion report earlier this year, Failure to Act: Economic Impacts of Status Quo Investment Across Infrastructure Systems, which said that failure to close this infrastructure investment gap will bring serious economic consequences. Specifically, by 2039, this report said, continuation of this infrastructure investment gap will cost the U.S. more than 3 million jobs, drain $10 trillion from U.S. gross domestic product (GDP), and reduce this country's exports by $2.4 trillion.
With a grade of C-, the ASCE report card said U.S. energy infrastructure is doing better than other sectors. It noted that the electricity business has invested significant sums to meet customer demands, but even greater investments are needed to improve the reliability of the transmission & distribution (T&D) systems and accommodate new demands. Customers expect "always on" power, but climate change will create severe weather that cuts against that expectation, the report said. The growing popularity of electric vehicles (EVs) likely will place new burdens on an already over-taxed delivery system, the report added.
The U.S. electricity delivery network is "an aging patchwork" of power generation facilities, 600,000 miles of backbone transmission lines and about 5.5 million miles of local distribution lines, the report observed: "The majority of the nation's grid is aging, with some components a century old--far past their 50-year life expectancy--and others, including 70% of T&D lines, are well into the second half of their lifespans."
The nation's electric distribution lines are "a key failure point ... in terms of electric reliability," the report continues. More than nine in 10 (92%) of all service disruptions occur on electric distribution networks, which faces multiple challenges including aging equipment, severe weather events and shifting consumption patterns.
Power outages cost the average U.S. household between $28 and $169 per year, the ASCE report card report noted. But U.S. data centers face far higher costs for power outages--about $8,851 per minute as of 2016, it added.
Click on the image at right to see a chart of power outages between 2008 and 2017, and the number of people affected by those outages.The report observes that U.S. electric companies have invested more than $285 billion in T&D upgrades since Superstorm Sandy in 2012. Some of those investments went to "hardening the energy grid to make it more resilient to future storms, including investing in new and upgraded T&D infrastructure, improving efficiency and reliability, and enhancing protection to enable a more secure, flexible and resilient electric system."
ASCE said U.S. annual spending on high-voltage transmission lines grew from $15.6 billion in 2012 to $21.9 billion in 2017, while annual spending on distribution systems grew 54% over the past two decades. But it sees an even-greater need for investments in T&D infrastructure "to accommodate the changing energy landscape, as delivery becomes distributed and renewables grow."
Industrial Info Resources (IIR), with global headquarters in Sugar Land, Texas, six offices in North America and 12 international offices, is the leading provider of global market intelligence specializing in the industrial process, heavy manufacturing and energy markets. Industrial Info's quality-assurance philosophy, the Living Forward Reporting Principle, provides up-to-the-minute intelligence on what's happening now, while constantly keeping track of future opportunities. Follow IIR on: Facebook - Twitter - LinkedIn. For more information on our coverage, send inquiries to info@industrialinfo.com or visit us online at http://www.industrialinfo.com.
