We are excited to announce our next Brown Bag Lunch on Thursday, October 28, 2021, at 2:00 pm ET. Please join us for a video presentation and live Q&A "Modernizing the Electric Grid: Why and How" by ASA Fellow Annabelle Pratt. This talk was originally presented at ASA 2017 at the Colorado School of Mines.

2017 ABSTRACT: The average American home consumes 900 kWh of electricity per month. This amount of energy is roughly equivalent to 40 cyclists biking eight hours per day, every day. This energy is drawn, conveniently and cheaply, from the world's largest machine – the electric grid – voted the twentieth century's greatest engineering achievement by the National Academy of Engineering. This energy is also remarkably reliable, with power available over 99.9% of the time. Yet, reported power outages are rising across the entire country because of an aging infrastructure and more frequent extreme weather. In this talk, Annabelle discusses what is meant by grid modernization and what is driving this effort, and how the traditional model of power generation and delivery is challenged by distributed generation sources such as solar and wind energy. She also shares her thoughts on the challenges of continuing to supply reliable electric power at a reasonable cost, especially in light of the view that access to energy services is integral to overcoming poverty.

Annabelle has been an ASA member since 1998 and she is currently active with the Rocky Mountain Chapter. Her bio can be found here.

Join Zoom Meeting:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82375200697