Critical Power Grid Security - Essay Example

More than 140 million customers in America rely upon the 3 linked sectors of over 3,200 utilities of electric distribution, ten thousand plus, generating units as well as tens of thousands of transmission miles which make up the power grid of the United States of America (LISA, 2013). With 500,000 people in average by United States Power Grid outages every day, it is quite safe to describe the power grid as reaching its capacity as well as weakening with age and infrastructure that is declining as the key culprit (Massoud & John, 2008).

The experts are becoming worried for a good reason. The US outages costs running to billions of dollars, the unpredictability as well as the unease for the infrastructure and the absence of physical security, has been leading to uncertainty amongst users of power especially in large scale, for instance data centers, institutions, manufacturing firms. Most power users as a result are being forced to become more innovative and come up with alternative sources of power (LISA, 2013). Within the past one year alone, there has been instances documented, for instance, Superstorm Sandy, within which weaknesses of the electric power grid got to be exposed or within which officials like those within Texas had to step in so as to avert a possible blackout.

With regard to this, a number of industries were forced to shut down or limit operations leading to huge problems from customers as well as the public. The greatest power consumers are among the very first to feel a waning grid pressure. In case of an absence of connectivity to generator failures as well as everything in between, this aging power infrastructure is intimidating to hurt businesses as well as individuals in more than one way. The original pathways of the electric power grid similar to those of the highway system were put in place during early the 20th century.

In addition, most utility companies still have structures which have run for about 50 to 70 years. It is so