如何避免“桑迪”式癱瘓重演

（１）分布式電力存儲

????今天，我們的電力系統不能存儲它自身生產的電力。電力從電廠生產出來之后，必須馬上使用，或者導入地下。如果不馬上使用或導入地下，隨著高功率電線與樹木和其他陸基物體的相互作用，電線就會變熱、松弛甚至開始發生故障。這也是造成2003年大斷電的原因之一。由于電網中沒有任何存儲設備，因此一旦發生故障，也就沒有任何緩沖空間，整個系統就會像多米諾骨牌一樣迅速癱瘓。

????想象一下，一個沒有硬盤的計算機網絡是什么樣子——在這樣的網絡中，必須實時使用所有產生的數據，既不能存儲也不能收回任何數據。這顯然是個荒唐的網絡，但今天我們的電網恰恰就是這個樣子。

????把電力存儲到“硬盤”里歷來都是個非常昂貴的項目，而且電力部門也想避免任何可能會提高用戶費率的項目。好消息是，電力存儲如今正變得越來越便宜，而且第一批商用電力存儲單元今年就將在全美范圍內安裝了。

????安裝了這些電池后，無論是建筑物還是家庭都可以按更便宜的非峰值電價用電，因此幾年內就可以充分證明自己的價值。另外，一旦發生自然災難，這些電池還可以提供備用電源和線路調節功能，避免電器電路被燒壞。有了電池設備，我們無需使用汽油和柴油發電，也能享受這些好處。

????德州的普西迪小鎮就決定在它的電網中安裝電池系統，因為它的電網與德州電網只靠一根線路連接。一家由AEP公司和伯克夏爾-哈撒韋公司（Berkshire Hathaway）旗下的中部美國能源（Mid-American Energy）出資建立的合資公司已經為這個小鎮安裝了電池系統。

（２）分布式發電系統

????互聯網之所以如此繁榮，其中一個原因就是，它既在云端擁有龐大的數據中心，同時在每個用戶的電腦上又有分散的計算數據。這種組合使得用戶不管身在何處，不管每個網絡節點是否出了故障，都能照樣進行生產活動。因此亞馬遜（Amazon）、谷歌（Google）和蘋果（Apple）等企業可以一邊憑借云端服務，一邊憑借用戶下載在自己設備上的本地應用，輕松地擴大業務。

????而電網是通過大型發電站進行集中發電的，因此在用戶生活的地區，也就是電網的“邊緣地帶”，發電能力很有限。因此，這就催生了更多的潛在故障點，而不是一個能抵抗風險的系統，因為一次突然故障就可能造成網絡的一部分斷電。

Distributed Electric Storage

????Our power system today cannot store the electricity it produces. Once electricity is generated at a plant, it must be used immediately or has to be grounded into the Earth. When it is not used and not grounded, high-capacity power lines heat up, sag and start faulting due to interaction with trees and other ground-based objects This is in part what caused the 2003 blackout. Since there is no storage of any scale in the utility grid, there is no buffer space when any kind of fault occurs and the system quickly shuts down in a domino effect.

????Imagine a computer network without hard drives -- a network where you had to use all data produced in real-time and could not store or retrieve any of it. That would be ludicrous, but it is the very system we have in our power grid.

????Storing the electricity we produce in the grid equivalent of hard drives was historically quite expensive and power authorities wanted to avoid any project that would raise customer rates. The good news is that electric storage is now getting cheaper and the first commercial storage units are being installed this year across the US.

????These batteries can pay for themselves in a few years by enabling buildings and homes to use cheaper, off-peak electricity. In case of a natural disaster, they also provide backup and line-conditioning to smooth out any spikes which can fry appliances and electronics. Battery storage gives us these benefits without the use of gasoline or diesel fuel.

????Presidio, Texas is a town that decided to install battery backup to its grid since it is tied to the rest of the Texas grid by only one line. A joint venture of AEP (AEP) and Berkshire Hathaway's Mid-American Energy (BRKA) installed the battery units.

Distributed Generation Systems

????One of the reasons the internet is so robust is that it has both large data centers in the cloud as well as distributed computing in every users' laptop or tablet. This combination allows any user to be productive no matter where they are and whether or not every network node is working or not. Amazon (AMZN), Goolge (GOOG) and Apple (AAPL) benefit from this robustness and can scale their businesses easily with both cloud-based services and local apps that users have on their own devices.

????While the power network has centralized generation in the form of large-scale power plants, it has limited ability to generate power at the edges where the users are. This creates more points of failure instead of a resilient system that can adapt to a sudden blow to one part of the network.