    [House Hearing, 115 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                   RESILIENCY: THE ELECTRIC GRID'S ONLY HOPE

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                  COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
                            HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                         ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                   __________

                                OCTOBER 3, 2017

                                   __________

                               Serial No. 115-29

                                   __________

     Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology

     [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

           Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov

                                _________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

     27-176 PDF                 WASHINGTON : 2018
    ____________________________________________________________________
     For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Publishing Office,
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                  COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY

                       HON. LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas, Chair
    FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma             EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
    DANA ROHRABACHER, California         ZOE LOFGREN, California
    MO BROOKS, Alabama                   DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
    RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois             SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon
    BILL POSEY, Florida                  ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
    THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky              AMI BERA, California
    JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma            ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut
    RANDY K. WEBER, Texas                MARC A. VEASEY, Texas
    STEPHEN KNIGHT, California           DONALD S. BEYER, JR., Virginia
    BRIAN BABIN, Texas                   JACKY ROSEN, Nevada
    BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia           JERRY MCNERNEY, California
    BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia            ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado
    RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana         PAUL TONKO, New York
    DRAIN LaHOOD, Illinois               BILL FOSTER, Illinois
    DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida              MARK TAKANO, California
    JIM BANKS, Indiana                   COLLEEN HANABUSA, Hawaii
    ANDY BIGGS, Arizona                  CHARLIE CRIST, Florida
    ROGER W. MARSHALL, Kansas
    NEAL P. DUNN, Florida
    CLAY HIGGINS, Louisiana
    RALPH NORMAN, South Carolina

                                C O N T E N T S

                                October 3, 2017

                                                                       Page
    Witness List.....................................................     2

    Hearing Charter..................................................     3

                               Opening Statements

    Statement by Representative Lamar S. Smith, Chairman, Committee
      on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
      Representatives................................................     4
        Written Statement............................................     6

    Statement by Representative Marc A. Veasey, Committee on Science,
      Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives...........     8
        Written Statement............................................    10

                                   Witnesses:

    Dr. William Sanders, Department Head, Department of Electrical
      and Computer Engineering, University of Illinois
        Oral Statement...............................................    12
        Written Statement............................................    15

    Mr. Carl Imhoff, Manager, Electricity Market Sector, Pacific
      Northwest National Laboratory
        Oral Statement...............................................    89
        Written Statement............................................    91

    Dr. Gavin Dillingham, Program Director, Clean Energy Policy,
      Houston Advanced Research Center
        Oral Statement...............................................   114
        Written Statement............................................   117

    Mr. Walt Baum, Executive Director, Texas Public Power Association
        Oral Statement...............................................   130
        Written Statement............................................   133

    Discussion.......................................................   138

                 Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions

    Mr. Carl Imhoff, Manager, Electricity Market Sector, Pacific
      Northwest National Laboratory..................................   164

    Dr. Gavin Dillingham, Program Director, Clean Energy Policy,
      Houston Advanced Research Center...............................   166

    Mr. Walt Baum, Executive Director, Texas Public Power Association   168

                Appendix II: Additional Material for the Record

    Statement submitted by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson,
      Ranking Member, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
      U.S. House of Representatives..................................   170

    Documents submitted by Representative Marc A. Veasey, Committee
      on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
      Representatives................................................   172

                   RESILIENCY: THE ELECTRIC GRID'S ONLY HOPE

                                  ----------

                            Tuesday, October 3, 2017

                      House of Representatives,
                   Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
                                                       Washington, D.C.

        The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:09 a.m., in Room
    2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Lamar Smith
    [Chairman of the Committee] presiding.

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Smith. The Committee on Science, Space, and
    Technology will come to order. Without objection, the Chair is
    authorized to declare recesses of the Committee at any time.
        Welcome to today's hearing entitled ``Resiliency: The
    Electric Grid's Only Hope.''
        I'll recognize myself for an opening statement and then the
    Ranking Member.
        Good morning. Today, the Committee on Science, Space, and
    Technology will examine the ongoing effort by federal agencies,
    industry, and the Department of Energy's National Labs to
    ensure that a resilient U.S. electric grid can deliver power to
    American homes, businesses, and essential services. This
    hearing specifically will consider the recommendations made by
    the National Academies of Sciences' in their July 2017 report
    identifying ways to enhance the resiliency of our electricity
    system.
        This Committee has held hearings addressing physical and
    cyber threats to our power system, as well as technological
    solutions to stop or prevent damage from these attacks, but we
    often ignore the fact that damage to the power grid can and
    will continue to occur. We cannot predict when a cyberattack
    would threaten our power supply, and as we were reminded a few
    weeks ago with the impact of Hurricane Harvey, we don't know
    when the next devastating natural disaster will occur.
        Instead of simply focusing on threats, we should prioritize
    improving the resiliency of our electric grid. The resiliency
    of the grid is the ability of system operators to prevent
    disruptions in power, limit the duration of a power disruption,
    and quickly repair potential damage. Resiliency is also
    increased by incorporating data analytics and anecdotal
    evidence to improve preparation for future disruptive events.
    Since it is not a question of ``if'' but a question of ``when''
    the power grid will face significant physical and cyber
    threats, resiliency should be a priority for our electricity
    system.
        Congress requested that NAS conduct a study on the
    resiliency of the Nation's electric system. The final report
    was authored by a group of academics and industry partners with
    a knowledge base in electrical systems, engineering, and
    cybersecurity. The author of this report, Dr. William Sanders,
    will testify today on the NAS report and its recommendations.
        The report recommends government and industry collaboration
    and improved data-sharing as the primary strategy for improving
    the resilience of the Nation's electrical system. The NAS
    report also stresses the importance of the Federal Government's
    investment in the kind of long-term, early-stage applied
    research and technology development that is the mission of the
    DOE National Labs.
        DOE maintains research infrastructure at National Labs that
    is vital to better understanding and operating our electricity
    system. High performance computing systems can conduct complex
    modeling and simulations that predict potential electricity
    outages and plan responses to attacks. And information-sharing
    programs like the Department's Cyber Risk Information Sharing
    Program facilitate industry communication on shared threats. By
    partnering with industry through the National Labs, DOE can
    provide critical knowledge and enable the deployment of new
    technology that improves grid resilience.
        There are still challenges to improving resilience. The
    current federal programs to protect and preserve our electric
    grid are fragmented and complex. Within the Science Committee's
    jurisdiction alone, programs to improve grid security and
    resiliency are funded at the Department of Homeland Security,
    FERC, the Department of Energy, and the National Institute of
    Standards and Technology.
        And incorporating utilities across the country, both large
    and small, adds even more complexity. Agencies will need to
    work together to simplify the information-sharing process for
    industry. Federal agencies, including DOE, must also prioritize
    the early-stage research that industry does not have the
    capacity to undertake. This will lead to the next-generation
    technology solutions.
        I thank our witnesses today for testifying about their
    valuable efforts in research, and giving their insights about
    operations of the electric grid. I look forward to a productive
    discussion about how federal agencies can work with industry to
    secure a resilient electric grid and what role Congress should
    play in providing direction and oversight to this complex
    process.
        [The prepared statement of Chairman Smith follows:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Smith. That concludes my opening statement, and
    the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Veasey, is recognized for his.
        Mr. Veasey. Good morning, and thank you, Chairman Smith,
    for holding this very important and timely hearing today. I
    really appreciate that. I'd also like to thank the
    distinguished panelists for being here this morning. I'd also
    like to thank Dr. Dillingham in particular. It's my
    understanding that your house was affected by the storm and
    hope that you and your family are doing okay now and recovering
    well.
        And also I'd like to--I look forward to this hearing and--
    because I want to hear your professional findings and your
    firsthand account of what storms like this can cause to
    communities across the country. I'm also interested in learning
    what we can do to improve their ability to restore power and
    other essential services as quickly as possible.
        Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria are very unfortunate
    examples of events that our world's leading scientific
    institutions many times here in this committee have warned us
    would happen more often. It is difficult to attribute any
    single storm to one specific cause but there is a strong
    scientific consensus that human activity is responsible for
    conditions that may lead to more frequent and intense
    hurricanes, and the severity of these events may continue to
    get worse unless we do something to change our trajectory. This
    is a major reason that resilience is so important, and I am
    glad that we are elevating our examination of this topic today.
        With that said, I am very concerned again with how the
    Department of Energy may actually be using and redefining grid
    resiliency to accomplish a political agenda. Just last Friday,
    the Department of Energy submitted a proposed rule to FERC with
    the direct purpose of adjusting market rules to favor coal and
    nuclear plants because they may have several weeks of fuel on
    site. The Department asserted that this makes these plants more
    resilient than natural gas and renewables and therefore deserve
    extra compensation for this attribute.
        And I would imagine, Mr. Chairman, that there are probably
    some people that drill in Texas for natural gas that will
    probably be--will probably disagree with that.
        Now, to be clear I'm a very strong supporter of developing
    and incentivizing carbon capture methods and technologies. It
    will help us to--it will help us reasonably use the abundant
    fossil fuel resources our nation has at its disposal, including
    coal. I also support the development and deployment of next-gen
    nuclear technologies while doing what we can to safely extend
    the lifetime of our current fleet.
        But that doesn't mean that we should unfairly favor coal
    and nuclear without a strong independently reviewed
    justification. The Department has leaned on its recently
    released report on the electric grid for its justification, but
    the lead author of that report, Alison Silverstein, pushed back
    against this mischaracterization of her work. According to the
    conversations she had with committee staff, the bulk of her
    work remained intact after she handed it to the Department.
    However, the final report's specific recommendations supporting
    coal and nuclear plants due to their resiliency characteristics
    was not justified by any research that she or her colleagues
    were aware of. In a piece she published in Utility Dive
    yesterday, Ms. Silverstein took issue with how DOE interpreted
    her technical work in the staff report.
        And, Mr. Chairman, I would like to enter this article in
    the record.
        Chairman Smith. Without objection, so ordered.
        [The information appears in Appendix II]
        Mr. Veasey. In it, she states the characteristics, metrics,
    benefits, and compensation for essential resilience and
    reliability services are not yet fully understood.
    Specifically, she concludes that, ``At this point we could not
    say that coal and nuclear have unique characteristics that
    provide such resiliency benefits that they should receive
    special treatment in the market.''
        This conclusion is also echoed by a thorough analysis
    released by the conservative R Street Institute on Sunday,
    which found that this proposal is neither technically nor
    procedurally sound. R Street summarized it as an arbitrary
    backdoor subsidy to coal and nuclear plants that risk
    undermining the electrical competition throughout the United
    States.
        And a story published in Energy and Environment News on
    Friday titled ``Flooded Texas Coal Piles Dampen Reliability
    Arguments'' is an example of why this proposed rule may not
    have been as rigorously developed as it should have been, never
    mind the fact that in addition to doing what we can to ensure
    the resiliency of the grid, the cost of unmitigated pollution
    from fossil fuels should also be incorporated into the cost.
    Propping up coal for one insufficiently justified reason
    without properly pricing a major cost of its development and
    use to our public health and the environment is not what I
    would call good policymaking.
        And before I conclude, Mr. Chairman, I would like to note
    that while the natural disasters are considerable threat to our
    grid infrastructure, there are a number of other concerns to
    keep in mind, too: cybersecurity, physical attacks, our aging
    infrastructure, geomagnetic disturbances, all of those present
    unique challenges to grid resiliency. And I look forward to
    hearing all of these topics discussed today.
        And finally, I would be remiss to not remind the majority
    of--the majority here on the panel that we are fast approaching
    the end of the year, and we have still not heard from Secretary
    Perry yet on this committee, and we need to hear from him. And
    I would think that with all the Texans that are on this
    committee that it would be like when he was with Randy Weber
    now in the State Legislature and he would feel fine coming on
    down here and talking to us. We've got east Texas, west Texas,
    the Houston area, Dallas-Fort Worth. We're all represented and
    I'm sure that Rick, as we used to call him when I was in the
    Texas Legislature, that he would feel fine coming on down here
    and talking to us and testifying.
        So, Mr. Chairman, with that, I yield back my time.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Veasey follows:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Smith. That's a good pitch, Mr. Veasey, and a good
    statement as well. Thank you.
        Let me introduce our witnesses. Our first witness today is
    Dr. William Sanders, Department Head of the Department of
    Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of
    Illinois. Dr. Sanders received a bachelor's degree in computer
    engineering, a master's of science degree and a Ph.D. in
    computer science and engineering from the University of
    Michigan.
        Our next witness is Mr. Carl Imhoff, Manager of the
    Electricity Market Sector at Pacific Northwest National
    Laboratory. With over 30 years of experience at PNNL, Mr.
    Imhoff has been involved with multiple electric power system
    organizations. He received a bachelor's degree in industrial
    engineering from the University of Arkansas and a master's
    degree in industrial engineering from Purdue University.
        The third witness is Dr. Gavin Dillingham, Program Director
    for Clean Energy Policy at Houston Advanced Research Center.
    Additionally, Dr. Dillingham is the Director of the U.S.
    Department of Energy Southwest Combined Heat and Power
    Technical Assistance Partnership. He received a Ph.D. in
    political science from Rice University.
        Our final witness today is Mr. Walt Baum, Executive
    Director of Texas Public Power Association. Previously, Mr.
    Baum was the Executive Vice President of the Association of
    Electric Companies of Texas. He received a bachelor's degree in
    economics from Austin College with concentrations in political
    science, regulatory policy, and land-use economics.
        We welcome you all, look forward to your testimony today.
    And Dr. Sanders, if you will begin.

                   TESTIMONY OF DR. WILLIAM SANDERS,

                            DEPARTMENT HEAD,

                        DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRICAL

                       AND COMPUTER ENGINEERING,

                         UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

        Dr. Sanders. Thank you, Chairman Smith. Chairman Smith,
    Ranking Member Veasey, and Members of the Committee, I am
    honored to appear before you today. My name is Bill Sanders,
    and I'm the head of the Department of Electrical and Computer
    Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
        I was a member of the committee that wrote the National
    Academies of Science's engineering and medicine consensus
    report entitled ``Enhancing the Resiliency of the Nation's
    Electricity System.''
        The subject of this hearing is resiliency. Resiliency is a
    fundamental and different concept from other abilities such as
    reliability or cybersecurity. In the context of electric power,
    a key insight about resiliency is that it attempts to avoid an
    event--in this case a long-term blackout--but understands and
    admits that avoidance may not be possible and thus works to
    respond as quickly as possible, preserving critical individual
    and societal services and over time strives for full recovery
    and enhanced robustness to further impairments.
        The reference studies focuses largely on the Nation's
    vulnerability to large-area, long-duration outages, those that
    span several service areas and last three days or longer. If
    found that much can be done to make these outages less likely,
    but they cannot be totally eliminated no matter how much money
    or effort is invested. To increase the resiliency of the grid,
    our report argues that the Nation must not only work to prevent
    and minimize the size of outages but must also develop
    strategies to cope with the outages when they happen, recover
    rapidly afterward, and incorporate lessons learned into future
    planning and response effort.
        The offered report also recognizes that at least for the
    next two decades most consumers will continue to depend on the
    functioning of a large-scale, interconnected, tightly
    organized, and hierarchical structured electric grid for
    resilient electricity service.
        In addition to many specific recommendations directed to
    particular organizations, the report makes seven overarching
    major recommendations. They're documented in detail in the
    report, and I'll just summarize them here. First, emergency
    preparedness exercises that include multisector coordination;
    implementing available grid resiliency technologies and best
    practices; supporting DOE research and grid resiliency;
    creating a stock pile of physical components, namely
    transformers, that enhance resiliency; developing a means for
    grid cyber resilience; continuous envisioning of possible
    impairments which could lead to large-scale grid failures; and
    ongoing efforts as needed to mandate strategies designed to
    increase the resiliency of the electricity system. In all of
    these efforts, the joint and collaborative involvement of
    government, industry, and academia is key to their success.
        A new concern to the resiliency of the power cyber portion
    of the grid and how that cyber portion could affect overall
    grid resiliency, the electric power system has become
    increasingly reliant on its cyber infrastructure, including
    computers, communication networks, control system electronics,
    smart meters and other distribution-side assets. A compromise
    of the power grid control system or other portions of the grid
    cyber infrastructure can have serious consequences ranging from
    a simple disruption to--of service with no damage to physical
    components to permanent damage of hardware that can have long-
    lasting effects.
        Over the last decade, much attention has been rightly
    placed on grid cybersecurity but much less has been placed on
    grid cyber resiliency. The sources of guidance on protection as
    a mechanism to achieve grid cybersecurity are numerous and
    documented in the report. It is now, however, becoming apparent
    that protection alone is not sufficient and can never be made
    perfect.
        An experiment, for example, conducted by the National Rural
    Electric Cooperative Association and N-Dimension in 2014
    determined that a typical small utility is probed or attacked
    every 3 seconds around the clock. Given the relentless attacks
    and the challenges of prevention, successful cyber penetrations
    are inevitable and there is evidence of increases in the rate
    of penetration in the past year. Serious risks are posed by
    further integration of operational technology systems with
    utility business systems, despite the potential for significant
    value and increased efficiency.
        Given that protection cannot be made perfect and the risk
    is growing, cyber resiliency, in addition to more classical
    cyber protection approaches, is critically important. While
    some work done under the cybersecurity nomenclature can be used
    to support resiliency, the majority of the work today has been
    focused on preventing the occurrence of successful attacks
    rather than detecting and responding to partially successful
    attacks that occur.
        As argued in the report and in our overarching
    recommendation number 5, further work is critically needed to
    define cyber resiliency architectures that protect against,
    detect, respond, and recover from cyber events that occur. So
    the title of this hearing, ``Resiliency: The Electric Grid's
    Only Hope'' is apt. The threat to grid resiliency is
    multifaceted and real, and the time to act is now.
        Thank you for the opportunity to be with you here today. I
    would be happy to answer any questions you have.
        [The prepared statement of Dr. Sanders follows:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Dr. Sanders. And, Mr. Imhoff.

                 TESTIMONY OF MR. CARL IMHOFF, MANAGER,

                       ELECTRICITY MARKET SECTOR,

                 PACIFIC NORTHWEST NATIONAL LABORATORY

        Mr. Imhoff. Thank you, Chairman Smith, Ranking Member
    Veasey, and Members of the Committee today, for the opportunity
    to join this important conversation. My name is Carl Imhoff,
    and I lead the Grid Research Program in DOE's Pacific Northwest
    National Laboratory in Washington State. For more than two
    decades, PNNL has supported power system resilience,
    reliability, and innovation for DOE and utilities across the
    Nation. I also chair DOE's Grid Modernization Laboratory
    Consortium, a team of 12 National Labs that support DOE's grid
    modernization initiative with--along with over 100 partners
    from industry and academia such as ERCOT and Texas A&M and the
    University of Illinois.
        Today, I offer three main points regarding grid resilience.
    Point 1, substantial opportunity exists to leverage fundamental
    science and applied research to enhance the Nation's options
    for modernizing the grid in ways that enhance overall
    resilience, and I'll share five examples.
        Point 2, the national laboratories have delivered important
    new approaches to enhance grid resilience, and I'll share some
    recent accomplishments and some emerging new efforts that were
    just recently announced.
        And point 3, state and federal regulatory stakeholders need
    resilience valuation tools in addition to the science and
    technology innovation so that they can better enable the
    required investment to actually deliver the science and
    technology innovations.
        Let's start with science and technology opportunities
    themselves. The definition of a resilient grid addresses both
    avoiding and resisting outages before an incident occurs, as
    well as rapidly responding to an incident and recovering as
    quickly as possible afterwards, two sides of the coin. Science
    and technology can contribute on both sides, avoidance before
    events and recovery afterwards.
        Specific S and T topics we think are vital to the future
    include the following: enhanced, real-time, predictive
    operational tools to detect problems early and steer around
    them; enhanced precision planning tools to better predict risk
    and design accordingly to make systems more resilient; advanced
    grid architecture, coordination, and control of the grid to
    pinpoint new structural risks and options on how to control the
    system and recover it more quickly; number 4, advanced data and
    visual analytic tools for better situational awareness across
    all hazards whether it's physical, weather, cyber; and then
    number 5, energy storage at an affordable price point to
    provide a new grid flexibility option for the future.
        For the hearing objective of improved cyber resilience,
    advanced data analytics and new grid architectures and controls
    would substantially improve the situational awareness of cyber
    threats and provide more resilient control options to present--
    to prevent further system damage. And advanced predictive
    operation tools and energy storage would help operators limit
    the spread of cyber-induced outages.
        For the hearing objective of physical resilience, an
    important emerging tool is the development of design basis
    threat assessments to frame the physical threat scenarios of
    highest priority to individual utilities. These systematic
    threat assessments, linked with enhanced planning tools, would
    better guide resilience investments for utilities and other
    stakeholders.
        Switching now to progress in the national laboratory grid
    modernization efforts, a foundational project in that effort is
    developing metrics to support government and industry efforts
    in grid modernization. Grid resilience is one of those six
    metrics. It's one that's still under debate in terms of its
    definition, and it's closely related to the traditional metric
    of grid reliability, as well as emerging metric called grid
    flexibility.
        Other projects include dynamic contingency analysis tools
    to help planners better avoid white area cascading outages like
    we experienced in the Northeast in 2003. This tool was
    developed in partnership with DOE and ERCOT and soon will
    become part of ERCOT's regular planning efforts.
        Grid analysis and design for resilience was another recent
    GMLC project delivered for New Orleans to help coordinate
    microgrids and other critical functions like water pumping, et
    cetera, to help them ride through emergencies.
        Finally, DOE awarded $32 million last month to fund seven
    resilient distribution public-private projects around the
    country to validate the performance of new resilience
    innovations emerging from the GMLC portfolio.
        My third point is that science and technology advances must
    be complemented by new tools to help utilities and regulators
    chart the investment strategies to improve grid resilience.
    Utilities at all levels, consumer-owned and, must have the
    capacity to understand the value of alternatives to improve
    their system, and state regulators need the same tools to
    provide the regulatory incentives to deliver the resilience
    improvements at scale. The National Labs are developing such
    evaluation framework with state and industry participation.
        So I conclude that science and technology innovation can
    enable a modernized grid that we can see, control, and protect
    like never before. Big data management, new data analytics,
    machine learning, and exascale computing will be central to
    delivering this modern grid and maintaining U.S. leadership.
    Grid resilience is intricately linked to other attributes such
    as reliability and flexibility, and new tools to value and
    simulate grid resilience concepts in concert with public-
    private field validation will accelerate national grid
    modernization efforts.
        I look forward to answering any questions.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Imhoff follows:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Imhoff.
        And, Dr. Dillingham.

                   TESTIMONY OF DR. GAVIN DILLINGHAM,

                           PROGRAM DIRECTOR,

                          CLEAN ENERGY POLICY,

                    HOUSTON ADVANCED RESEARCH CENTER

        Dr. Dillingham. Good morning. Chairman Smith, Ranking
    Member Veasey, and Members of the Committee, thank you for the
    opportunity to appear before you today. I'm Gavin Dillingham,
    Program Director of Clean Energy Policy at HARC. We're a
    nonpartisan research institute in the Woodlands, Texas. I'm
    pleased to provide testimony on the resiliency of the United
    States' power infrastructure, particularly in respect to risks
    posed by extreme weather events.
        Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the findings of
    the latest NAP report on resilience. It's very timely and
    important. It pushes forward the discussion that we must have
    to ensure a more resilient power system.
        A key area of interest for me is the discussion on the
    increasing intensity of extreme weather and the impact on the
    electric system. The systems must be designed and constructed
    for a multitude of extreme weather events, and I wanted to
    provide one example and specific to Texas. Texas has
    experienced multiple extreme weather patterns resulting in
    significant power outages in the last few years.
        First of all, there was the statewide drought of 2011/2012.
    This multiyear drought placed considerable pressure on power
    generation, which is highly dependent on water for cooling.
    During the drought, there was not enough water to cool the
    plants or the water was too warm for cooling. There was a
    significant concern by ERCOT about losing millions of
    potentially several thousand megawatts of power if the drought
    did not end.
        A recent Argonne National Labs study finds--that looked at
    the drought situation finds that the Texas grid could face
    severe stress due to lack of water availability, as well as
    derating of thermal electric plants due to high water
    temperatures. The stress on the power system due to this
    drought is not only limited to Texas. It's an issue across the
    entire western United States, particularly in the arid States.
        And Texas, beyond drought, we've had three 500-year-plus
    flood events in the last three years, the most recent being
    Hurricane Harvey, which dumped about 27 trillion gallons of
    water along the Gulf Coast. If you're familiar with Texas and
    the eighth wonder of the world, that's 68,000 Astrodomes'--or
    86,000, I'm sorry, Astrodomes' worth of water. If you actually
    added that out, it'd be about 400 square miles about 128 feet
    high, I mean, a huge amount of water at one point, left close
    to one million utility customers without power.
        The other two floods we've had was the tax day flood of
    2016, and the 2015 Memorial Day flood. Flooding can cause
    significant damage to transmission and distribution systems,
    particularly substations, and the potential long-term duration
    of floods can significantly delay the restoration of power to
    communities.
        I'd be remiss not to mention Hurricane Ike, which happened
    in 2008. During Hurricane Ike, 2.1 million customers lost
    power. Many of them were out of power for over two weeks. which
    is actually fairly small when you look at what just happened
    with Hurricane Irma where there were over 9 million customers
    that lost power. And then you look at the Hurricane Maria,
    which essentially took out the entire island of Puerto Rico.
    Texas also deals on average with 146 tornadoes per year,
    wildfires and ice storms, and most recently, the Texas
    panhandle, January 2017 ice storm that cut power to 31,000
    customers.
        This is one example of one State. Similar stories of
    extreme weather events can be found across all States. For more
    info, you could check out the Department of Energy's U.S.
    Energy Sector Vulnerabilities to Climate Change and Extreme
    Weather.
        Natural disasters will increase in number and have already
    increased in intensity, and this puts our existing grid at
    risk. It's very difficult to determine the timing, location,
    and intensity of these events. With this level of uncertainty
    and when financial resources are limited, it is challenging to
    make the appropriate investment decisions. When decisions are
    not made, infrastructure is not built, and our systems are not
    prepared. This will result in significant damage and loss.
        Uncertainty is the enemy of action. Fortunately, we're
    seeing the deployment of downscaled regional climate models
    that provide improved certainty of the likelihood of extreme
    weather events. Texas Tech University Climate Science Center is
    a great example of doing some of this work. Better visibility
    into future climate patterns will improve planning for power
    systems and decision-making, and the--more investment must go
    into these models to reduce further uncertainty.
        Some of the solutions we'd like to discuss, first of all,
    in the United States, the power portfolio is very highly water-
    dependent. Approximately 85 percent of our power generation
    requires water. Fortunately, systems not requiring water being
    deployed across the country largely in the form of wind and
    solar generation systems, battery storage, and microgrid.
    However, the speed at which these systems are being deployed
    does not look to significantly shift the grid away from water
    dependency. Projections differ significantly, but regardless of
    what projection you look at, both--most of them look at over 60
    percent of the power system dependent on water out to 2050.
        The technology and capability is available to quickly
    deploy these systems. Unfortunately, policy and regulations
    have not kept up. It should hearten the Committee to know that
    the recently released DOE grid reliability study finds
    increased deployment of renewable resources has not and will
    not negatively impact the operation of the grid. This should
    remove some of the policy and regulatory headwinds here.
        A key issue is availability of funding. Two funding
    mechanisms that could increase the deployment of renewable
    energy is to allow renewables to participate in master limited
    partnerships, similar to what fossil fuel assets are allowed to
    participate in, and allowing the deployment of green bonds to
    fund renewable infrastructure. These are two market-based
    funding solutions.
        Other hindrances are the patchwork of grid interconnection
    standards, old utility models that do not account for the
    benefits of DER. We should also start looking into PEER,
    performance excellence electricity renewable--renewal. These
    are voluntary power resilience standards that should be
    considered to improve the reliability and resilience and
    operational effectiveness of our grid. And then also looking at
    microgrids and microgrids with combined heat and power. These
    are proven systems to improve--increase the resilience of
    critical infrastructure. It's estimated that 3.7 gigawatts of
    microgrid systems will be deployed by 2020, which is small in
    comparison to other resources. But a very important resource as
    we look for systems that are resilient and have demonstrated
    their efficacy through a wide number of natural disaster
    events, most recently being the UTMB in Galveston during
    Hurricane Harvey.
        The DOE has actively worked to increase deployment of CHP
    through its Better Buildings Initiative Resiliency Accelerator
    and Combined Heat and Power Technical Assistance Partnership.
    It is recommended this technical assistance continue.
        To conclude, the tendency is to count the number of
    hurricanes and extreme weather events and make that the key
    climate metric. The numbers are increasing. There is
    uncertainty when exactly there'll be a material increase, but
    that is largely irrelevant as the intensity of these storms
    increase. There's considerable agreement by climate models that
    they will continue to do so. We are not prepared for this
    growing intensity.
        Natural disasters threats are real and now directly impact
    the operation of our grid. If we continue business as usual,
    systems will become more vulnerable, the economic and social--
    societal disruption cost will increase, and recovery will be
    less sustainable to growing demand on constrained resources.
    The technology and systems exist that are being deployed now to
    limit this risk. However, barriers exist with funding,
    regulations, and utility models that hinder deployment of these
    resilient systems.
        Thank you for the opportunity today. Sorry for going long.
        [The prepared statement of Dr. Dillingham follows:]

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        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Dr. Dillingham. That is fine.
        Mr. Baum.

                      TESTIMONY OF MR. WALT BAUM,

                          EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,

                     TEXAS PUBLIC POWER ASSOCIATION

        Mr. Baum. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Veasey. I
    appreciate the opportunity to testify today. My name's Walt
    Baum, and I'm the Executive Director of the Texas Public Power
    Association. TPPA represents the 72 municipally owned utilities
    in the State of Texas. We represent about 15 percent of the
    customers. In Texas you also have electric co-ops that serve
    another 15 percent of the customers, and then the investor-
    owned utilities serve the rest. TPPA is also a proud member of
    American Public Power Association, APPA.
        I'm here today to talk about the real world--a real world
    example of a resilient grid and that is how ERCOT, the grid the
    serves most of Texas, recovered from Hurricane Harvey. I don't
    have to tell any of you about the devastation that Hurricane
    Harvey caused. Many--all of you have seen it; many of you
    experienced it firsthand. It was an incredible storm that Dr.
    Dillingham talked about, all the water and wind that was
    dropped. It really was two different storms when it hit Texas.
    It was a wind event in the Corpus area where first made
    landfall as a category 4 hurricane, and a lot of transmission
    was damaged, but then, as it moved on to the coast and into the
    Houston and the Beaumont, Port Arthur areas, it became much
    more than just a rain event. And utilities there were dealing
    with flooded substations and other issues.
        In the Corpus area, AEP, the utility which serves the
    Corpus area, they alone had over 550 transmission structures
    that were damaged and 5,700 distribution poles that were hurt
    by the storm. And, as we said, then in the Houston and Beaumont
    and Port Arthur areas you had flooded substations. We actually
    had to bring in some temporary mobile substations to replace
    those flooded substations, which was--which is newer technology
    that probably wasn't available 10, 15 years ago. We're proud of
    that.
        It was a tough storm, but the story is largely good in
    Texas. There were about--right at about 1-1/2 million customers
    were affected but not at any time. Because of the way that the
    storm was very slow-moving, we never had more than about
    300,000 customers out at any one time. And all customers were
    restored--96 percent of the customers were restored within 14
    days when the storm first made landfall. There were a few
    others that took a little bit longer to restore just because of
    flooding and high water. But as of--20 days after the storm
    originally made landfall, all customers who could take power
    were back and receiving power. And we're really proud of that
    work and the tireless work of linemen and line workers to
    repair the grid.
        Reliability and resiliency are really closely intertwined
    concepts in the electric grid. Reliability is when you turn on
    that switch is--are the lights going to come on? And resiliency
    is when those lights don't come--turn on when you flip that
    switch, how long does it take to get them back on. Our goal is
    always 100 percent reliability, but because we can't prevent
    weather or other manmade emergencies, a reliable grid must have
    built-in resiliency.
        Every storm's different and Harvey's historic. And because
    I'm from Texas, this is where I'm contractually obligated to
    say this wasn't our first rodeo. Utilities nationwide plan and
    coordinate to prepare for these types of events, and plans
    address how crews will be deployed and how information will be
    shared with customers and when to call for additional help.
    Grid resiliency is really part of day-to-day operations in the
    electric utility industry from going out and doing tree
    trimming and vegetation management to when you're planning the
    grid, planning it with redundancy in mind, and grid operators
    and utilities with generation plan for reserve margins to make
    sure there's ample power during our peak times, even if large
    generation units go off-line. Transmission and distribution
    systems are always designed with redundancy, and ERCOT actually
    conducts annual Black Start training which is done to simulate
    the total loss of our grid and bringing it back up from zero.
        Mutual aid is also a key important part of resiliency. Just
    as firefighters, police officers, and other emergency
    responders combine forces to help rebuild communities, line
    workers and other personnel do that as well. Crews from all
    across Texas and other areas of the country shared in our
    restoration efforts. Utilities that were most affected called
    in crews from other areas. In our systems, municipally owned
    utilities went to go help out the investor-owned utilities
    after getting there systems back online. CPS Energy sent crews
    to help AEP Texas and CenterPoint. And not just electric
    workers, they also sent IT personnel to help them get their
    networks back up and running. APPA, the American Public Power
    Association, has its own mutual aid network, and they
    coordinate with EEI, the investor-owned trade associations, and
    NRECA, the electric co-ops associations.
        During Harvey, we did daily calls with APPA to talk about
    how the municipally owned utilities were affected and then
    moved on to calls that DOE ran in which all of the different
    sectors of the electric industry got together to help. And
    similar coordination was in place for Irma.
        Once restoration was complete in Texas, we sent many crews
    to Florida and CPS Energy, Austin Energy, Denton, Garland and
    other Texas utilities were all out there helping Florida. And
    we have our own mutual assistance group in Texas as well to
    first respond to our different systems.
        While the story is positive, each event is also a way for
    individual utilities to learn and be better prepared for the
    next round of storms. Our new Public Utility Commission Chair
    had a hearing last week in which she identified several issues
    for the industry and government partners to work together to
    prepare for the next storm. My members' Public Power utilities
    and the entire electric industry are committed to sharing
    information, technology crews, and equipment to continue to
    keep the lights on.
        I especially want to thank all the crews and personnel in
    our industry. The tireless work of the line workers and support
    staff behind them is truly inspirational. It's also serious and
    dangerous business. Unfortunately, the industry lost a young
    lineman last month who is helping to restore power near
    Victoria.
        Thank you very much for the opportunity to testify, and I'm
    happy to answer any questions.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Baum follows:]

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Baum.
        Thank you all for your testimony, and I'll recognize myself
    for five minutes for questions. And let me direct my first
    question, Dr. Sanders, to you.
        You will be challenged, by the way, to give a brief answer
    to my question, which is what are the short-term and long-term
    steps that need to be taken to protect the electric grid from
    cyber attacks?
        Dr. Sanders. You're right. Professors are not known for
    being brief, but I'll do my best.
        Chairman Smith. Okay. And if you have to pick, choose the
    short-term as opposed to long-term.
        Dr. Sanders. Okay.
        Chairman Smith. Yes.
        Dr. Sanders. So, first, let me say that there's a large
    effort underway today much different than there was at the turn
    of the century to protect the grid against cyber attacks. Since
    the early 2000s the Department of Energy, the National Science
    Foundation, the National Labs, and others have been working in
    this area, and substantial progress has been made. So, in a
    sense, what needs to be done and I think what we are doing is
    taking a concerted approach where industry, government, and
    academia come together to work on this problem.
        Many ideas, technical ideas and technical solutions, have
    been developed, and a short-term challenge and maybe the most
    important short-term challenge is to find ways within the very
    multifaceted landscape that includes regulation, that includes
    issues with cost, that includes States and Federal Governments
    to find ways to implement those solutions. We've made
    substantial progress there, but there are many things that
    still have been developed that need to be implemented to make
    our grid secure.
        Chairman Smith. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Sanders.
        And, Mr. Imhoff, what can the government do to encourage
    innovation that will promote resiliency?
        Mr. Imhoff. Another short answer. I think the key is to
    provide leadership, to encourage the combination of fundamental
    advances in mathematics, in control theory, and data analytics
    and advanced computing and link those closely with industry
    through bodies such as NERC, the Electric Subsector
    Coordinating Council, which is a strong government industry
    body, work with NRECA and APPA and others to help move those
    fundamental advances to practice and implementation within
    industry. Step one would be field validation. Most of those are
    cost-shared. I think most industry members would argue that
    they've been very productive. So I think from the federal
    standpoint, leadership to help drive forward the fundamental
    knowledge to help us innovate and stay in front of the wave is
    a fundamental contribution.
        Chairman Smith. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Imhoff.
        And, Mr. Baum, in what way does the Texas electric grid--in
    what way does it differ from other grids and why?
        Mr. Baum. Well, the Texas electric grid is--we talk a lot
    about--you know, Texas is very different and Texas has its own
    grid. ERCOT covers 85 percent of the area of the State and
    about 90 percent of the load. It doesn't cover the entire
    State. Areas in the Panhandle and the corners of Texas aren't
    part of the grid, but we are our own grid. Power that is
    generated in Texas largely stays in Texas. Of about 70,000
    possible megawatts of generation, at any time we can only
    import or export under 1,000 megawatts. So, you know, we
    truly--we're--I like to say that Texas is an island a lot in
    electricity. That sounds a little calloused now with what's
    going on with Puerto Rico, but we pretty much are on our own,
    and so, you know, that--we are different from the rest of the
    country in terms of that goes.
        Chairman Smith. Okay. But in positive ways that you just
    mentioned because the coverage and so forth. Okay.
        Mr. Baum. Yes.
        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Baum.
        Dr. Sanders, one last question for you. Would we benefit
    from simplifying our structure having fewer government agencies
    and departments involved? I guess it depends on how you
    simplify, but do you think that's a direction we should go? And
    I think that's one of your recommendations anyway.
        Dr. Sanders. So the committee report was neutral on the
    actual government structure to be used. The committee felt very
    strongly that this is a complicated issue, that there are
    different issues, for example, the interaction between DHS and
    DOE that are working well, and--but these need to be
    correlated.
        Chairman Smith. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Sanders. And that
    concludes my time, and the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Veasey, is
    recognized for his questions.
        Mr. Veasey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        I wanted to ask Dr. Dillingham a couple of questions
    particularly as it relates to climate change and rising global
    temperatures. I know that there are a lot of people including
    oftentimes on this committee we hear that--we don't know human
    involvement as it relates to climate change or some people that
    outright deny that climate change is happening even though
    there's a lot of consensus within the scientific community that
    there is some manmade contributions as it relates to climate
    change.
        And I wanted to ask you, as we consider potential
    infrastructure investments, do you think that States and
    utilities should consider climate change as it relates to the
    resiliency of the systems?
        Dr. Dillingham. Yes, thank you for that question. Yes. And
    what we seem to find is that when we talk about climate change,
    there's usually like a specific type of event that's pointed to
    like hurricanes or to floods or just one particular type of
    weather phenomenon. And when you look at climate change,
    there's a significant number of weather phenomena that are
    happening here for what I mentioned, from drought to floods to
    hurricanes to ice storms, and all of these are events that are
    becoming more intense and more extreme. And the--you know,
    we've seen that actually personally, and we've also seen that
    within the future climate models that are being deployed.
        One of the things that, you know, needs to be considered
    and we've been discussing this a lot more at HARC and across
    the State is, you know, now that these climate models, the
    downscaled regional climate models are becoming a lot more
    accurate in understanding the intensity and likelihood of these
    events happening. It needs to be at least part of the
    conversation here. We have projections for--in ERCOT, for
    example the amount of solar and wind that are going to be
    deployed. That does not take into--that takes into account
    historical weather patterns but that does not take into account
    future weather patterns or future weather phenomena. And so if
    we have models that were getting greater--we're feeling more
    comfortable with and feel like they have better accuracy, it is
    important that we start including those within our projections
    and understanding on how the grids operate for the future so we
    can start developing in that regard.
        Mr. Veasey. Well, thank you very much. That sounds
    reasonable. What about insurance companies? Do you think that
    they need to consider changing environmental factors when
    engaging with potential clients?
        Dr. Dillingham. The insurance companies are way ahead of us
    on this. They already are doing this. They have their
    catastrophe models and now they're bringing in the downscaled
    climate models. And many of their decisions now are based on
    potential future climate factors that they're looking into and
    what's the risk of us funding this infrastructure into the
    future. And so what you're seeing now is actually development
    of resilience bonds that are actually being coupled with
    catastrophe bonds. And these resilience bonds are largely put
    in place by the insurance companies to mitigate risk. The
    Brookings Institute had a nice report on this a couple years
    ago discussing the opportunity to bring the--in resilience
    bonds into the market to bring in another kind of funding
    source essentially, bring in the financial market to help
    better develop more resilient infrastructure. And so the
    insurance companies are way ahead in this regard.
        Mr. Veasey. This is again for you, Dr. Dillingham, and
    Walt. As you know, Hurricane Harvey was not the first hurricane
    to damage Texas and won't be the last. This is, you know,
    something that we've had experience with and will continue to
    have experience with. One--and communities are trying to look
    for ways they can harden their infrastructure to deal with
    future catastrophes. One notable example in Houston is the wall
    that was built after Hurricaine Allison to protect the
    substation that provides power to the medical center.
        I wanted to ask you how have communities adapted to the
    changing conditions that we are experiencing as a result of
    climate change?
        Dr. Dillingham. There has been--I'll just speak specific to
    the Houston region. There has been some significant activity or
    growing activity in this regard. UTMB Galveston is an example
    that was flooded out during Hurricane Ike. They had to
    essentially close that down, and there was questions whether or
    not it'd even become operational again.
        But what they've done since then is they've put in a
    combined heat and power system, which is an onsite natural gas-
    generated system that operated great during Hurricane Harvey.
    They also built that above grade. It's up on the second floor,
    so it prevents floodwaters from getting in there and they also
    build a flood wall around it. So there's steps happening
    especially within critical infrastructure, hospitals
    particularly, wastewater treatment plants that are going into
    place, and a lot of it is focused on distributed generation
    and--which is typically a combined heat and power type system
    being put in place.
        As far as just in the community in general when you look at
    the parts of the community that have started taking action to
    be more resilient--so Meyerland is a neighborhood in Houston
    that has flooded multiple times. The homes that are starting to
    build above grade, the homes that are taking these--you know,
    starting to put in these resilience standards to make sure that
    they're above grade, none of those flooded. So--and they're--
    and those homes are in good shape.
        And so it's a matter of starting to put in place these
    voluntary resilience standards, educating communities,
    educating project developers, engineers, architects to
    understand what is the way to start building more--in a more
    resilient fashion but do it in a cost-effective manner. You
    can't do it in Texas if you're going to mandate regulations,
    and you're not going to do it if it's expensive. We built
    ourselves on low cost of business and low cost of living.
        And so what the important piece is is how do you implement
    this stuff and how do you build capacity within our building
    community to allow them to do this in a cost-effective way?
        Mr. Veasey. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Veasey.
        And the gentleman from California, Mr. Rohrabacher, is
    recognized for questions.
        Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and
    thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing today. And it
    is something I just think that we have not given serious
    attention to this. I know we've had several Members over the
    years who have made it their crusade to talk to us about EMP
    and other threats, but it just--nothing seems to be--get done
    and there doesn't seem to be a national strategy that actually
    coincides with how vital this could be to the well-being of the
    American people.
        If we have something go crazy with the sun, I understand it
    could knock out all of our grid. I mean, you'd knock out 75
    percent of the people's electricity in the United States of
    America. I mean, this is a tremendous threat that--and again,
    we're talking today about reliability and resilience.
        Let me talk to you about some real specifics rather than
    having the experts get together and talk about it, all right?
    What about a more diversified power system that we would then
    target that would be a much more diversified power source for
    the American people? Would that be a major step towards dealing
    with this potential threat? Anybody want to say anything about
    that?
        Dr. Sanders. You can go first. I'll go second.
        Mr. Imhoff. Thank you for the question, and I think that
    diversity, whether it's in diversity of fuel mix, diversity of
    generation and other things provides resilience and robustness
    to the system.
        Mr. Rohrabacher. Well----
        Mr. Imhoff. And from the standpoint of EMP and space
    weather or----
        Mr. Rohrabacher. Right.
        Mr. Imhoff. --geomagnetic activities, there are
    differences. The higher risk is at the further northern
    latitudes and the southern latitudes. I think the good news,
    sir, is that over the last year, both DOE has put in place an
    initial program plan dealing with the space weather issues. The
    Electric Power Research Institute has actually begun working on
    standards and operational approaches for component purchase and
    installation that would begin to deal with these issues. NERC
    has actually set two standards that are the beginning of a
    journey that would help utilities better plan for and defend
    and operate through these storm events.
        Mr. Rohrabacher. Well, let me get real clear on this. We
    now depend on big, huge electric plants, and it seems to me
    that we could have, for example--let me ask you whether this
    would have been one solution--if we would have determined 20
    years ago or 30 years ago that we're going to build small
    modular nuclear reactors which are now we are told we are very
    capable--have been capable of building, would that in some--
    would that type of diversification help us solve this or deal
    with this issue?
        Mr. Imhoff. So I think diversity, regardless of the type,
    regardless of whether it's natural gas or nuclear, can provide
    some resilience, but any device is going to be--has some risk
    in terms of electromagnetic fields. They would need to have----
        Mr. Rohrabacher. Right.
        Mr. Imhoff. --the protection, the shielding, et cetera, on
    critical components regardless of the type of generation. So
    nuclear itself is not more or less robust.
        Mr. Rohrabacher. So--but if we--so we have smaller nuclear
    power plants in various communities, for example, which I
    understand we're capable of doing in very--which are, by the
    way, safer from what I understand than light-water reactors,
    that that would not protect--give us more protection than to
    have it in one major power plant?
        Dr. Sanders. So let me follow up a bit on this. As Mr.
    Imhoff said, diversity in the source of generation, both in the
    type and in the geographical distribution of the generation,
    can be helpful. With regard to the kind of solar events that
    you talk about, the same issues, whether we're diversified or--
    to different degrees or not will apply with regard to the
    resiliency of the transmission and distribution system of the
    overall grid. There are very interesting strategies that are
    talked about in the report. These include microgrids. These
    include----
        Mr. Rohrabacher. Right. Let me ask you this. Would it be
    easier to fix if you've got a major source versus many smaller
    sources, a big nuclear power plant versus small modular nuclear
    power plants? No?
        Dr. Sanders. I'm not an expert enough to know that.
        Mr. Imhoff. I can't speak to that either, sir.
        Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay. Well, let me just note that we also
    have solar panels that--you know, would that be affected as
    well, if a house--you go down right to the greatest
    diversification which is individual homes, would this be more
    resilient and have more protection?
        Mr. Imhoff. I can't speak to the inherent robustness of
    solar panels themselves per se, and I don't think the outcome
    is to move to completely distributed energy. There are some
    values of some of the large centralized plants as well, so I
    think it's really an issue at each region, at each electrical
    region, whether it's Texas or the Western Coordinating Council
    or the Southeast, they need to look at their fuel diversity,
    they need to look at their prices, they need to look at their
    vulnerability to things like geomagnetic storms and figure out
    what's that right balance between centralized and decentralized
    activities.
        The one challenge, sir, what's changing at the edge in
    terms of today's grid is there's an explosion of new devices
    and new services and new innovations coming at the edge, many
    of which are outside the boundary of the utilities. Microsoft
    is providing its own power. Walmart is generating its own
    renewables on rooftops in their stores all around the country,
    so these are dramatic shifts in how we plan the system, as
    opposed to how we did it 20 and 30 years ago, so I think it's
    regional and local. I think they each need to figure out what's
    the right balance of distributed versus centralized generation
    and supply, and that's part of what I think is so important
    about regional planning activities across the country, doing
    what makes sense for them locally.
        Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay. Thank you very much.
        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Rohrabacher.
        The gentleman from California, Mr. Takano, is recognized.
        Mr. Takano. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        On Friday, the Secretary of Energy submitted a proposed
    rule to the Federal Energy Regulation Commission, otherwise
    known as FERC, with the explicit purpose of adjusting market
    rules to favor coal and nuclear power plants. The justification
    that they provided was for--for this was that these sources
    have several weeks of fuel onsite and therefore are inherently
    more resilient than natural gas or renewable energy generators.
        However, this assertion, along with the overall proposal,
    has received widespread criticism not only from the renewable
    and natural gas industries but from respected independent and
    even conservative experts on power markets. For example,
    Utility Dive just published a point-by-point refutation of this
    misguided effort by Alison Silverstein, who is the lead
    author--who is lead author that DOE hired to draft the grid
    report that the agency used to justify the new proposal.
        The conservative R Street Institute also released a
    thorough analysis on Sunday, which concluded that this proposal
    is, quote, ``an arbitrary backdoor subsidy to coal and nuclear
    power plants that risks undermining electrical competition
    throughout the United States, end quote''. And Nora Mead
    Brownell, a former Republican FERC commission said in an Energy
    & Environment News article posted yesterday that she, quote,
    ``has never seen a credible argument, not one, that there is a
    problem with resiliency and reliability,'' end quote, due to
    coal and nuclear power plant retirements.
        On the contrary, a story published in E&E News on Friday
    titled, quote, ``Flooded Texas Coal Piles Dampen Reliability
    Arguments,'' end quote, is--and it's a clear example of how
    poorly justified this proposed rule really is.
        Now, each--gentlemen, I need to get through--I want to get
    to several questions. Do you think subsidizing the coal
    industry is an efficient and cost-effective way to make the
    grid more resilient? I would prefer a yes or no answer.
        Dr. Sanders. So I think, first and foremost, we have to
    remember that resiliency is a system issue. No single source of
    generation can determine the resiliency of the grid. It depends
    on having enough generation in a distributed fashion, having
    the transmission and distribution infrastructure to deliver the
    power to the consumer----
        Mr. Takano. Excuse me, Mr. Sanders, I've got to get
    through----
        Dr. Sanders. Okay.
        Mr. Takano. --a few questions. Can you kind of give me a
    yes or no, I mean, as far as--I mean, my question is pretty
    simple. Do you think subsidizing the coal industry is an
    efficient and cost-effective way to make the grid more
    resilient knowing all we know about coal and competition----
        Dr. Sanders. Right. Right. The report did not find that to
    be true.
        Mr. Takano. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Imhoff?
        Mr. Imhoff. So, just quickly, resilience is a system
    activity, and what I think is more important is what are those
    plans replaced with? If they're replaced with combined-cycle
    natural gas or other things, those have equal and sometimes
    better resilience capabilities than the coal plant. I am not a
    markets person, so I can't really speak to the issue of
    subsidy.
        Mr. Takano. All right. Thank you. Dr. Dillingham?
        Dr. Dillingham. I would have to answer no. Being from the
    State of Texas, we're not a big fan of subsidies and especially
    in this case.
        Mr. Takano. Thank you. Thank you for that. Mr. Baum?
        Mr. Baum. The key, as has been mentioned is, you know,
    multiple fuel sources and redundancy on the grid, but I don't
    think any special subsidies is needed.
        Mr. Takano. So subsidizing coal industry is not an
    efficient and cost-effective way to make the grid more
    resilient? Probably not? Would that be fair to say, Dr. Baum?
        Mr. Baum. Probably not.
        Mr. Takano. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Imhoff, in your
    testimony you discuss how energy storage could provide more
    flexibility in how operators might mitigate cyber outage and
    improve recovery. Can you expand more in the specifics about
    energy storage is able to accomplish such a task?
        Mr. Imhoff. Yes, thank you, Mr. Takano, and thank you for
    your leadership on the advanced battery grid caucus.
        Mr. Takano. You're welcome.
        Mr. Imhoff. The issue around energy storage is it
    fundamentally decouples supply from demand. It's like a shock
    absorber for your truck that you drive down your ranch road.
    The shock absorbers help smooth it out and enable you to keep
    from spilling the coffee in your lap. Energy storage will help
    decouple supply from demand, and what that adds to the grid is
    flexibility. So if there's a cyber attack that takes out a
    certain substation or certain supply sources, having that added
    flexibility in terms of energy storage linked with advanced
    control and power electronics that are smart power electronics
    give the operator more degrees of freedom for how they steer
    around that problem. So that's the role it will play, adding
    more flexibility to the system to respond to an outage.
        Mr. Takano. Well, and it's also energy-source neutral, so
    if we found--in the case of Mr. Rohrabacher--small nuclear
    power plants were more efficient than gas--than the gas-powered
    plants, I mean, this still would be a tremendous addition to
    the resilience of the system.
        Mr. Imhoff. It is source-neutral, correct.
        Mr. Takano. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Takano.
        The gentleman from Florida, Mr. Posey, is recognized.
        Mr. Posey. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank
    you, gentlemen, for appearing today.
        Have any of you read the book One Second After? It's a
    novel by William Forstchen. It was a New York Times bestseller.
    Well, it was obviously written from a report about the EMP,
    electromagnetic pulse, threat our nation faces, and if you're
    in the energy business, I would really recommend the book to
    you to read.
        A little over a year ago, the Earth's orbit missed by about
    one week a solar eruption which seems would have taken out all
    our satellite communications and probably destroyed our power
    grid. My question to you is what you think we should be doing
    to protect our citizens against that threat? About 60 seconds
    each would be appreciated with Dr. Sanders first.
        Dr. Sanders. So, first, let me say that I am not personally
    an expert on this topic, but we did have expertise on our
    committee and I've--on this matter Tom Overbye from the
    University of--or from Texas A&M University is an expert on
    this topic. I talked with him about this issue, and this is an
    issue of intense research. This is an issue of intense study,
    and there are solutions that are beginning to emerge but
    they're in the early stages. They include raising awareness to
    the potentially severe impacts of GMDs. There is software now
    to plan for the impacts of GMD on systems, and people are using
    that to do studies.
        We're at the stage really where engineers are getting down
    to looking at what the real issues are. There are magnetometers
    that are being installed across the country to measure these
    kinds of disturbances. In fact, the University of Illinois has
    one on some land that my department owns right off site. And
    research is ongoing with groups like NERC and EPRI helping in
    this effort.
        So in summary, we don't have all the solutions we need now,
    but progress is being made.
        Mr. Posey. Thank you, sir.
        Mr. Imhoff. To follow up, nor am I an expert but I will say
    the following. We have a number of disparate activities in the
    country related to electric magnetic pulse. We have a spread of
    tools, but what we don't have is an integrated toolset, nor do
    we have a common reflection across the three different
    waveforms, E1, E2, and E3, and we need to get to that so that
    we can provide guidance to industry to--for them to better
    shield and protect the new devices that are being produced for
    the grid for which we are modernizing and investing heavily
    each year.
        So there is work underway. There are coordinating groups
    trying to drive that, but I think we need a more focused
    national effort to move towards a common set of integrated
    tools that reflect all three of those E1, E2, E3 waveforms. And
    the challenge is--and some of the solutions for geomagnetic
    sometimes might interfere or confound the solutions for the EMP
    waveform, so that's why we need this integrative view of the
    waveform so we can get a common voice to industry on how to
    design around this issue.
        Mr. Posey. Thank you.
        Dr. Dillingham. I would have to say Dr. Sanders and Mr.
    Imhoff are the experts here, and they did a good job in as far
    as explaining stuff. I learned something there, but I cannot
    speak to this issue.
        Mr. Baum. And I would say, you know, this is an issue that
    is being studied right now. EPRI, the Electric Power Research
    Institute, is conducting a multiyear study on this where they
    are also releasing what they find every few months and all
    different types of utilities, investor-owned, municipally
    owned, co-ops are participating in that EPRI report.
        I know there are--my feeling is the first thing we need to
    do is study and figure out what if any technical changes needs
    to be made to the grid, but I think you need to do the study
    and research first. There are people out there saying we've got
    this quick fix that if you buy this type of Faraday cage or
    this type of new equipment, you know, then you'll fix your
    problem, but I think you need--I think we need more study first
    and then decide what if any new equipment needs to be made.
        Mr. Posey. Thank you. Which agency do you see having taken
    the lead in this or do you think should be taking a lead in it?
    We've had hearings on this before, and I found the industry had
    very little interest in this.
        Mr. Imhoff. So, my understanding is a group called the
    Mission Executive Council is actually working on this, and I
    believe that that council has represented some Department of
    Energy and from the Department of Defense and other agencies
    that are linked to the satellite systems, et cetera. So I would
    start with Mission Executive Council. I don't know a lot about
    them, but I believe there already is some coordination across
    the key involved agencies.
        Mr. Posey. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I see my time is
    expired.
        Chairman Smith. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Posey.
        The gentleman from New York, Mr. Tonko, is recognized.
        Mr. Tonko. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our
    witnesses for being here today. Obviously, this hearing was
    rescheduled due to the recent natural disasters. In light of
    those disasters, I believe it's an appropriate time for this
    committee to consider how to strengthen our grid. I would hope
    as we invest in the comeback for all the States that have been
    impacted by these natural disasters and also areas like Puerto
    Rico, the Virgin Islands, and the various territories, I would
    hope we build a grid of the future.
        We've learned many lessons from Mother Nature. Following
    the devastation from major disasters, people begin to think and
    plan for all possibilities. In New York, the REV initiative,
    borne by the New York State Public Service Commission, came in
    the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy. It was inspired by
    Superstorm Sandy. That disaster showed the value of distributed
    generation and encouraged the State to invest in microgrid R&D
    and consider barriers to deployment.
        So, Dr. Dillingham, you mentioned microgrids paired with
    combined heat and power systems. Can you describe the value
    these systems add to our grid system in general?
        Dr. Dillingham. Yes, absolutely. So, a microgrid system
    with combined heat and power is typically a natural gas-based
    system, and so what these combined heat and power systems do is
    they produce power onsite and then also provide thermal
    services if it's for hospital sterilization, domestic hot
    water, steam for industry manufacturing, and such.
        And so what we typically find is that the natural gas
    infrastructure is significantly--can be significantly more
    robust than a transmission distribution infrastructure. It
    seems to withstand a lot of the severe weather events. And so
    what we're seeing now is a greater deployment of these CHB
    microgrid systems particularly in the hospitals--in Texas and
    in kind of most of our region in hospitals, wastewater
    treatment plants, first responder-type facilities, data
    centers, and you're seeing a greater growing of flexibility in
    application of these.
        At one point, combined heat and power was largely seen as
    kind of an industrial type of approach. Now, you can get them
    down to very small even residential size to build even
    community microgrid systems. And in many cases these are fairly
    diverse systems to where you have maybe the CHP or a natural
    gas generator as your base system, and then you have solar and
    batteries there as well, so you have an additional--other types
    of generation components.
        But it's largely, you know, a system that allows you to
    potentially island from the grid so if the power does go down,
    you would want to island from the grid. And if you do have
    that, you also need to have Black Start capability, so there's
    plenty of other types of components that go into a more
    resilient type microgrid system there that have been
    demonstrated and proven to work time and time again. And it
    adds to the diversity that we've been talking about of a power
    system.
        Mr. Tonko. Okay. Thank you. I would add that school systems
    where you might have a swimming pool as part of the phys. ed.
    infrastructure are also opportune----
        Dr. Dillingham. Right. And filters are used quite a bit
    for--or high schools, schools use them quite a bit for shelters
    as a last resort, and that's a very good application for that.
        Mr. Tonko. Absolutely. How important is federal funding for
    the development of these systems?
        Dr. Dillingham. At this point, it's a fairly mature system
    as far as the combined heat and power piece goes here. These
    have been around for quite a while. The diversity of
    applications now, most of the issues we find is there's just a
    lack of knowledge as far as how these systems can be used
    beyond, say, a gas refinery or beyond a natural gas processing
    plant, and how do we move this into a diversity of other
    groups.
        And so most of the work that we do has to do with kind of
    educating and kind of capacity-building among those that have
    not had a lot of experience with this. It's like when you talk
    with someone about solar and they still think it's, you know,
    $5 a watt, and right now, it's down to 60 cents a watt. People
    still think the economics are not there, but they are now, and
    so you just need that education piece of that, as well as some
    early technical assistance.
        Now, as far as microgrids in general, you know, there's
    still some significant work that can be done especially when
    you look at the communication devices, the sensors, how these
    are coupled together, how to do the appropriate optimization
    models. You know, there's some--still some significant work
    that needs to be supported at the R&D level, but the basic
    component of like a CHP, combined heat and power system is
    largely there and just needs to continue to be built out.
        Mr. Tonko. Thank you. The National Academies of Science's
    July report on resiliency suggested that distributed energy
    resources, and I quote, ``may help avoid or defer the need for
    new generation transmission or distribution infrastructure to
    address congestion localized, reliability, or resilience
    issues.'' So, Dr. Sanders, if integrated properly, can
    distributed generation contribute to making a resource
    generation mix more resilient?
        Dr. Sanders. To give you a simple answer, yes. We believe
    that putting together distributed generation sources, together
    with an appropriately engineered grid, can add to resiliency.
        Mr. Tonko. And if we include other investments such as
    storage and microgrids, does that offer new opportunity?
        Dr. Sanders. Definitely, they are all possibilities. It's
    hard to predict the future, and in one of the chapters, we talk
    about various features and how the grid would have to adapt to
    those futures, but they're all things that could be part of the
    mix.
        Mr. Tonko. Thank you. Mr. Chair, I yield.
        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Tonko.
        The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Weber, is recognized for
    questions.
        Mr. Weber. [Presiding] Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        My district 14 in Texas, the three coastal counties
    starting at Louisiana and coming southwest, arguably ground
    zero for Harvey flooding. It's just unbelievable. I have
    learned more about restoration, recovery, and all of the
    efforts that have gone on than I ever wanted to know about
    disasters, and I hope I never get to--have to use it again.
        So with that as a backdrop, Beaumont lost water because
    their electrical boxes went--lost their city water system
    because their electric boxes went underwater, and a lot of the
    infrastructure there, had it been raised above ground six,
    eight, ten feet or more, it could have been protected. We're
    talking about infrastructure.
        Walt knows that I was on the Environmental Reg Committee in
    the Texas House and dealt with energy there that session so
    this is very--and I was an air-conditioning contractor before I
    sold my company, so this is very near and dear to my heart. A
    great, great discussion.
        A couple things I did want to follow up on. The gentleman
    from California, Mr. Rohrabacher, talked about EMPs and SMRs.
    Of course the SMRs are going to be more expensive to buy up
    front, so there's a cost factor there, but when you talk about
    EMP protection, I don't know probably which one of you guys can
    answer this is--does EMP affect only a magnetic field that is
    in operation at the time, or is it all electrical devices?
        Mr. Imhoff. Again, it's not my area of expertise, but I
    believe it would affect all because it's going to create
    currents that will tend to overheat and cause issues in various
    electrical devices, but again, I'm not an expert in this area.
        Mr. Weber. So you're--that is to suppose that a jet engine
    in an energy plant built by GE or whoever, this turbine that's
    not spinning--in other words, if we had redundancy, if we had a
    plant sitting there that wasn't operating, wasn't active, EMP,
    solar flare, choose whatever method you want, you were thinking
    that that would destroy the windings in that engine. Dr.
    Sanders?
        Dr. Sanders. So once again, not being an expert but talking
    with experts about this, my understanding is potentially yes if
    they are connected to the grid in a way that that current can
    get to them, but I think the important point is is that
    potentially, particularly when this is a solar-generated event,
    there is some warning, and so if we have appropriate detectors
    on the Earth, then we may be able to reconfigure parts of the
    grid----
        Mr. Weber. You would have a main switch you could throw----
        Dr. Sanders. In a sense.
        Mr. Weber. --disconnect it?
        Dr. Sanders. In a sense. It's probably not as simple as one
    main switch, but there are ways in which we could build
    protection according to the understanding----
        Mr. Weber. Okay.
        Dr. Sanders. --I have.
        Mr. Weber. Let me--you know, reading through this and going
    back through this brings up some really interesting questions.
    I think there's about five ways that we can help make our grid
    more resilient, and I'll just name them real quick. We need to
    have portable deployable assets. We talked about SMRs. We
    talked about other systems. Mr. Dillingham, you called it a
    microgrid of sorts I guess. I don't know how you have a natural
    gas pipeline that's capable of running that kind of facility,
    high-pressure pipeline. That's one of the challenges.
        You have to have preapproved--in other words, FERC, all
    these agencies have to have preapproved these in emergencies.
    You have to have multiple assets. You have to have more than
    one you can bring in. They have to be close. You have to have
    trained personnel. And I know in ERCOT--Mr. Baum, you and I
    talked about this--we really have a good--like I said, I've
    learned more about all of the collaboration that goes on after
    a disaster--a network of first responders. If you've got
    preapproved, if you've got portable assets, if you've got them
    close by, and you've got a network of trained responders that's
    cooperating, that will help harden our grid.
        Now, you get to the transportation part, the lines and
    stuff, Fukushima taught us something over in Japan, their
    nuclear plant, their backup power was too low. If we had our
    way, we would raise everything up eight, ten feet in the air at
    least to get everything above groundwater.
        Harvey was the single largest flooding event in United
    States history, so, you know, I don't know if we can come in
    and fix all of those problems and raise all of those things up.
        Mr. Baum, I'm going to come to you with a question. What
    kind of technology is available in your experience to stop a
    domino effect of power outages from moving region to region?
        Mr. Baum. In Texas, our grid operator, you know, is--as Dr.
    Dillingham talked about earlier, we deal with weather events
    all the time, nothing as extreme as Harvey normally, but our
    grid operators are used to dealing with loss of certain lines
    or loss of certain generation. During Harvey, ERCOT did have--
    they have certain power plants that they have under contract to
    provide emergency power when needed, and when we lost some
    transmission lines due to the storm, they were able to call
    those reliability unit commitments into play, and a couple of
    power plants spun up to provide voltage support for that area.
    So that type of coordination needs to continue.
        One of the things you mentioned earlier, the staging and
    the moving of equipment, having ways to, you know, before--you
    know, before Harvey and especially before Irma, being able to
    stage crews and equipment and already have polls on the way to
    help out, you know, is very key.
        And, you know, like you said with the, you know, having
    modular equipment, you know, I mentioned earlier the mobile
    substations that we are able to bring in and keep power on the
    grid, and those type of activities need to continue.
        And it's like you said earlier, design changes do need to
    happen. The--you know, in Houston where you lost a big
    substation due to flooding, the Memorial substation, that had
    been there for 15 years----
        Mr. Weber. Right.
        Mr. Baum. --and--I'm sorry, for 50 years and had never had
    water inside it. But with this storm it was flooded and was
    underwater for over 10 days. So that is now--that substation is
    being rebuilt with, you know, the new normal to be prepared if
    we have another flood event----
        Mr. Weber. Right.
        Mr. Baum. --and being raised and doing walls and other
    things like that, you know, our--we need to look--you know, we
    need to take what we've learned from this storm and be prepared
    to do those design changes.
        Mr. Weber. Absolutely. Well, I appreciate that. Like I
    said, I've learned a lot. I hope I never have to use it again,
    but it is--it will be very, very important information to have.
        I'm going to now recognize the gentleman from California,
    Mr. McNerney.
        Mr. McNerney. Well, I thank the sitting-in Chairman for
    recognizing me. I thank the panelists.
        A moment of self-promotion, I care a lot about resiliency
    and reliability, and that's why, with Mr. Latta, we formed the
    bipartisan congressional caucus on grid innovation, and we've
    produced some bills that are now working their way through the
    system to answer some of these questions.
        My first question goes to Mr. Dillingham. Is there a
    significant difference in terms of reliability and resiliency
    with regard to microgrids versus distributed systems, or do
    they pretty much look the same in terms of those two questions?
        Dr. Dillingham. It's largely the same. I mean, it just
    depends on how you're defining a microgrid. Out there, there's
    still a considerable amount of definitions on what a microgrid
    would be, but it's largely distributed energy resources. You
    know, typically, if you look at solar rooftop, it's distributed
    energy. If you look at a microgrid, it's--typically has
    multiple resources associated with it, if it's solar, battery,
    CHP, or the like.
        Mr. McNerney. Okay. Thank you. You mentioned the adaption
    gap. Can you describe why that's a challenging problem?
        Dr. Dillingham. That's been--starting to be discussed quite
    a bit more and just generally infrastructure issues as far as
    how do we best prepare for climate change issues and if that's
    water treatment or stormwater mitigation or our transportation
    infrastructure or power infrastructure. But the concern is and
    the issue that we face is that, due to the multitude of
    potential weather events that are being faced, taking one
    action in one area may not necessarily solve other action. So
    if we deal with drought within our power system, does that
    necessarily solve high wind, ice storm, flooding, hurricane-
    type issues.
        And when you are limited--financially limited, as we are,
    you know, within cities and with kind of--just within our
    infrastructure budgets, you kind of have this difficulty of
    making the appropriate decision, which way do I go as far as
    investing in the right piece of infrastructure. If I go and
    prepare for droughts and then all of a sudden I have ten years
    of floods, I look like I've really made a mistake here.
        And so that's one of the--when the expectations with these
    downscaled climate models, they're becoming so precise now, you
    can actually start putting likelihood estimates associated with
    potential storm intensity, as well as number of events, and
    those should start at least being considered being incorporated
    in our planning as we go forward and that should potentially
    reduce that uncertainty.
        Mr. McNerney. Very good. Mr. Imhoff, your testimony touches
    on the effort in framing metrics to support grid modernization.
    What role can the Federal Government play in developing metrics
    for the grid?
        Mr. Imhoff. Thank you, sir, for the question. The Federal
    Government is involved. As part of the Grid Modernization
    Laboratory Consortium, we are framing a set of metrics for the
    next generation grid, three of which are the traditional usual
    suspects of reliability and affordability and environmental
    profile, but the new ones of resilience and flexibility are
    kind of challenging and under debate but they're very essential
    as we go forward.
        So I think the Federal Government is providing some of the
    innovation to help frame and recast some of these activities,
    and they've established the opportunity then to work with
    States and the--at the regulatory bodies and the vendor
    community and others to help test and validate these, and
    they're part of the current GMLC research portfolio.
        Mr. McNerney. I've been in standards committees, and
    they're a pain, but it's worth it. It's worth the effort.
        Mr. Sanders, is enough being done regarding the
    interconnectedness of the grid with oil, gas, and other natural
    resources?
        Dr. Sanders. That's definitely an area in which more work
    needs to be done. Much of the work to date has been focused on
    the resiliency of the grid, but as I think many of us agree and
    as the report notes, that interconnectedness is important, so
    more work should be done.
        Mr. McNerney. Well, how would you rank cybersecurity issues
    with the grid resiliency?
        Dr. Sanders. Cybersecurity, if I understand your question
    correctly, is a very important impairment to grid resiliency, a
    very real impairment, and one of the important things we should
    consider. The report takes an all-hazards approach. In fact we
    talk about about 12 different impairments of the grid. They're
    all important, can't leave them out. What we need to understand
    is to what extent can we build protections that can protect
    against multiple of these impairments, and to what extent do we
    need to build specific mitigations for them?
        Mr. McNerney. Well, then how does knowledge of previous
    cyber attacks prepare for future attacks? Is----
        Dr. Sanders. Great question. Clearly, knowledge is very
    important. On one hand, knowledge can be used through
    appropriate information-sharing in order to alert others that
    this particular vulnerability, which is being exploited, may be
    exploited in another location and in a very close period of
    time. On the other hand, there are always new kinds of attacks,
    so-called zero-day attacks, and so we cannot rely purely on
    history to think about the future.
        In a sense what we need to do--and this is where resiliency
    is very important--is we need to build systems that, rather
    than protecting against very specific cyber attacks, protect
    against whole classes of effects those cyber attacks may bring
    on the grid. So by thinking about the effects and through
    resiliency, through that resiliency cycle, mitigating those
    effects, then we can begin to protect against zero-day attacks
    that we haven't seen before.
        Mr. McNerney. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield
    back.
        Mr. Weber. I thank the gentleman.
        The gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Banks, is recognized for
    five minutes.
        Mr. Banks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        What an incredibly important subject for us to tackle
    today, so I appreciate the Committee diving deeply into these
    issues.
        And when I continue to talk about the cyber-related aspect
    of this subject as the growing number of--the growing threat of
    cyber attacks is something that concerns me as a policymaker
    and does a number of my colleagues as well. And these are no
    longer hypothetical threats. We've seen two threats to the
    electrical grid in Ukraine, for example. And with the systems
    relying more and more on computers and information technology,
    we need to do everything, as you know, that we can to counter
    potential cyber threats.
        So with that, Dr. Sanders, could we take a step back and
    maybe give us more specifically how often is the cyber--is
    there a cyber attack or an attempt of a cyber attack on our
    national grid? And have we seen that number rise over the past
    five years?
        Dr. Sanders. Thank you very much for that important
    question. First, let me say that it's a very difficult question
    to answer. Different people have different bits of knowledge,
    some of that knowledge in the open, some of that knowledge
    classified, some of that knowledge in the hands of other
    countries, so it's a difficult question to answer.
        Having said that, what we're seeing is an increase in the
    rate of observed cyber attacks, right? We now have documented
    cyber attacks that are known in the public. We didn't have that
    just a few years ago. And we're seeing that the frequency of
    lower-grade probing and attacks on both the operational
    technology and on the information technology, both on the--if
    you will, the online part of the grid and the offline control
    of the grid, those kinds of attacks increasing.
        Mr. Banks. How do we monitor those attacks? I mean, how do
    you--can you give us sort of a dummied-down version of how we
    monitor--how do we know that those attacks occur and exist?
        Dr. Sanders. Sure. So some of them are big and we read
    about them in the news, right, the Ukraine attack and these
    kinds of things. Some of them we can monitor for. The lower-
    grade, more frequent ones we can monitor for using online
    technology. There are systems called intrusion detection
    systems first popularized in our corporate information
    technology systems that can look for packets, that can look for
    behavior that tends to be abnormal and flag those as possible
    attacks. There have been specific versions of those intrusion
    detection systems that have been built for the power grid both
    on the side of smart meters, for example. One was developed at
    the University of Illinois that's been prototyped and used at
    FirstEnergy, for example, and other aspects of grid-specific
    kind of networks.
        Now, the trouble is is those signals are not always clear.
    We get a lot of noise in those, and so we have to fuse that
    information together, and we have to create higher-level
    intelligence that we then can make those determinations, and
    work to do that is ongoing.
        Mr. Banks. So these might seem like obvious questions, but
    what do we know about these adversaries who carry out attacks
    like these? What are their motives? Where are they coming from?
    Can you talk a little bit--we haven't talked enough about that
    today. Can we talk a little bit about----
        Dr. Sanders. Sure. Sure.
        Mr. Banks. --what we know about these adversaries?
        Dr. Sanders. Sure. I think we know a lot, but we know
    pieces of the whole story. We know that they come in all forms.
    We know that they come from kiddie scripters up to potentially
    nation-states, right? The evidence is pretty strong that
    nation-states are involved. We know that they're coordinated,
    we know that they're deliberate, we know that they will wait,
    they will insert code into a system and they may wait months
    until they activate that code. So the real challenge is to gain
    that understanding and to understand how to react to these
    things when the adversaries may be willing to wait months to
    gain their information.
        Mr. Banks. An incredibly important subject, and hopefully,
    Mr. Chairman, we'll have many more opportunities to examine
    these issues. I appreciate all of you being here very much.
    With that, I yield back.
        Dr. Sanders. Thank you very much.
        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Banks.
        The gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Foster, is recognized.
        Mr. Foster. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And this is a
    technical question here. A lot of the really destructive
    scenarios that people, you know, worry about have to do with
    phase imbalances, resonant conditions, this sort of stuff,
    frequency mismatches that make it really hard to control the
    grid. These don't occur in a DC. grid, and there--I was
    wondering what studies may have been done about the potential
    resiliency differences on DC. grids versus A.C. grids which,
    you know, have just a number of advantages I can think of just
    in terms of being able to, you know, passively protect them
    with things like diode clamps from--and the interface is a much
    simpler one. You have--simply, are you delivering the voltage
    and current or are you not, and opening up the circuit. It's
    just--from a number of ways, it seems to me it's a lot easier
    to protect. I was wondering what work has been done on trying
    to quantify that difference and that may actually cause us to
    think over time of actually switching to a DC. grid, which gets
    mooted from time to time. Yes.
        Mr. Imhoff. So I'll start but defer to the professor. The--
    as you know, the history of our system being an A.C. system is
    long, and it started 2 centuries ago I guess, but there's
    substantial experience with DC. interties mainly today focused
    on movement of large amounts of power over long distance. They
    are more efficient and you can--actually, right above the A.C.
    system and not have to deal with a lot of the reliability
    oscillatory control and other things underneath in that A.C.
    system.
        Mr. Foster. Correct. Right.
        Mr. Imhoff. But it all gets down to cost, and so the
    planners--we don't--have not seen a lot of DC. activity here in
    the United States over the last decade until the offshore wind
    issues became emergent, and so there is more direct-current
    activity in Asia and in Europe than in the United States. I
    think here is just an artifact of the economics of the current
    system where we have a flat demand. We have a lot of
    inexpensive natural gas, and I don't think that the economics
    have really tripped it in the favor of more DC. activities
    going forward.
        I will say that, as part of the grid modernization
    consortium portfolio, there is a study that's being coordinated
    with various ISOs, Midwest ISO, Southwest Power Pool,
    Bonneville, and the Western Interconnection looking at seams
    issues in terms of how my DC. overlays enable capacity-sharing
    beyond the current interconnection boundaries and what value
    would that provide and what sort of cost performance would that
    offer. So I think there's an emerging body of knowledge and
    analytic tools that might look to the next generation of the
    modernized grid and re-examine this issue of what might be the
    relationship between A.C. and DC. systems at the bulk system-
    level. And that study should be wrapping up in January, I
    believe.
        Mr. Foster. Well, the other thing that's changed is
    essentially all power that goes out certainly at the consumer
    level goes through an A.C. to DC. converter, and so at some
    point, you know, we've been just converting more than we might
    necessarily have to. And the pure DC. system may have
    advantages just in terms of--you know, if we were to start over
    from scratch, I think we'd seriously consider a DC. system.
        Also, if you add the requirement of EMP hardness, which is
    a very expensive thing but may prove necessary, and cross your
    fingers that Rocket Man doesn't do what he's been talking
    about, but if that is a requirement added to this, then I think
    protecting a DC. system against that will be, my guess,
    significantly easier than an A.C. system where you have phase
    and frequency to worry about.
        So is there any work, you know, at the lower end in Europe
    or anywhere looking at--you know, at the distribution-level DC.
    system?
        Mr. Imhoff. There is consideration of this notion of
    avoiding the transform--and the inherent losses in the
    transformers to go to more DC. I think some of the large data
    farms and others are emerging are very high consumers of
    electricity actually do some of that because they're inherently
    D.C.-oriented inside and so they're avoiding some of those
    issues. But it's more kind of localized and off--one-off
    evaluations, I believe. I'm not aware of anything substantial
    in the United States.
        Mr. Foster. Yes, well inside big data centers, for example,
    I believe they are switching to DC. power. It is where they
    have got, you know, many megawatts. And so there's another big
    vulnerability that gets worried about, which is just how long
    it would take us to remanufacture many, many high-powered
    transformers, whereas it probably would be easier to rebuild
    the fraction of D.C.-to-D.C. converters that got wiped out in
    an EMP pulse. And so if you add that as a requirement, it may
    again tip the balance when you add the hardness requirement.
        Anyway, if there's anything specific that can be talked
    about either, you know, publicly or not publicly about efforts
    along that direction, I'd be interested.
        Mr. Imhoff. I'd be happy to take that for the record.
        Mr. Foster. Thank you. I yield back.
        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Foster.
        And the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. LaHood, is recognized.
        Mr. LaHood. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to thank
    the witnesses for your valuable testimony here today and want
    to particularly welcome Dr. Sanders, who's the Department Head
    at our flagship university, the University of Illinois, and for
    what you do at the electrical and computer engineering program
    there. Great to have all of you here today.
        Dr. Sanders, in your testimony, you mentioned your work at
    the U of I, the University of Illinois with the cyber
    infrastructure for the power grid center and also the Cyber
    Resilient Energy Delivery Consortium. Two questions on that,
    could you talk a bit more about how these two centers are
    helping to make the U.S. power grid more resilient, and then
    secondly, is this the type of work that's happening at other
    universities?
        Dr. Sanders. Thank you, Mr. LaHood. I'll--at the risk of
    being self-promoting, I'll try to be a bit brief on this. The
    University of Illinois started work on cyber infrastructure
    making trustworthy and making resilient and cyber secure the
    infrastructure for the grid back in 2005. I can say that this
    is a real need that we realized by the turn of the century, but
    it took time to get the attention of the funders and really
    have people understand this was an important thing to work on.
        The first of those efforts, TCIP we call it, or Trustworthy
    Cyber Infrastructure for Power was funded by the National
    Science Foundation in a grant, and in the wisdom of the
    National Science Foundation, even though financial contribution
    was not large at the time, they brought in Department of Energy
    and Department of Homeland Security to work closely with us.
        It was very different than your typical academic research
    project. From the very beginning, we brought in people from
    industry and the National Labs. People from Mr. Imhoff's group
    were with us at 2005, and we were defining the research agenda.
    People from about 35 companies came together at that first
    meeting, and they worked closely with us from that point out.
        A follow-on effort was funded by the Department of Energy,
    which is called TCIPG, and TCIPG expanded the scope to say
    don't just do the good academic research but find ways to
    transition that and get that in the hands of people that need
    it.
        Several startup companies have come out of that effort.
    Technology has been specifically transitioned to large power
    system equipment manufacturing, and you can see really that
    kind of input going on.
        Most recently, in 2015 there was once again an open
    competition from the Department of Energy, and the University
    of Illinois then received something called CREDC. That's Cyber
    Resilient Energy Delivery Consortium. And at that point in
    time--and I should say in the original centers that I talked
    about, there were four universities that partnered together.
    Now, 10 universities and two National Labs, including PNNL,
    banded together to look at resiliency issues in the grid.
        So that, once again, is a project that takes basic research
    but takes basic research and then industry-government
    partnership in a way that we can have impact. In fact my
    colleague David Nicol, who is the principal investigator of the
    CREDC effort, is in Texas today talking with people from the
    oil and gas industry about how we can transition our
    technologies to them. We flew out together last night from
    Champaign, him to Texas, me to here, and this is the kind of
    effort we place going on. So thank you for that question.
        Mr. LaHood. Thank you. Those are all my questions. I yield
    back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. LaHood. A good Texas-
    Illinois connection there I didn't know about.
        The gentleman from Florida, Mr. Crist, is recognized for
    his questions.
        Mr. Crist. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And let me
    add, thank you for holding this hearing on this important
    issue. As a Floridian, I certainly appreciate it. I want to
    thank the panelists for being here, too. I appreciate your
    presence and taking of your time to help educate us even more
    about our grid and its resiliency.
        I recently saw a comparison that the Energy Information
    Administration did on grid resiliency during Hurricane Irma and
    Hurricane Wilma, which hit Florida in 2005. The assessment
    states, quote, ``Although the percentage of Florida customers
    without power during Irma was significantly higher than during
    Wilma, the rate of electric service restoration has been more
    rapid.'' Five days after Irma's landfall, the share of
    customers without power had fallen from a peak of 64 percent
    down to 18 percent, a recovery rate of about nine percent of
    the customers per day. Power outages during Wilma back in 2005
    went from 36 percent of customers to 16 percent by the fifth
    day after landfall, an average recovery rate of about four
    percent of customers per day.
        Dr. Dillingham, I'm curious. You know, with this in mind
    and--can you speak generally about improvements that have been
    made to make our grid more resilient and specifically maybe
    focus on discussion of the utilization of underground lines as
    a means of increasing resiliency? We see a lot of our barrier
    islands and beach communities in Florida moving to this not
    only because it's aesthetically appealing, but we get hit by
    hurricanes a lot.
        Dr. Dillingham. Yes, absolutely. Thank you for that
    question. Yes, there have been significant improvements,
    particularly in the resilience of the transmission distribution
    infrastructure. We are seeing quicker response times. There's a
    lot better coordinated deployment, as Mr. Baum talked about
    within the ERCOT region. The systems are just becoming more
    robust to deal with this.
        When you talk about burying lines versus aerial lines, the
    significant issues with that is it may solve some problems in
    some areas where there is high wind events but where there's a
    lot of flooding, that could actually put it at considerable
    risk if they're not properly designed. And so you need to--as I
    kind of mentioned earlier, developing----
        Mr. Crist. I think I'm assuming proper designing.
        Dr. Dillingham. Proper designing, right.
        Mr. Crist. Wouldn't we?
        Dr. Dillingham. We would assume proper design there, but
    what we typically find is that if we start--you know, like
    within Houston we have lines that are aboveground and
    belowground. The concern there is that in more flooding
    environments, you just have a higher risk of those lines being
    disrupted versus if they're aboveground, and so it's just--you
    have to make that tradeoff. If you're going to pay the
    additional dollars to bury them, are they properly developed
    and properly can mitigate against that, that flooding risk
    there.
        But to your point, they're--we have seen significant
    improvements in the way in which our systems have been
    designed. They're more flexible. They're allowing for better
    rerouting of power. And so yes, they have improved
    considerably, but we need to keep in mind also that, you know,
    the focus right now of course we've had three significant
    hurricane events, and so we are talking about that quite a bit
    right now, but there's a lot of other issues that are being
    dealt with across the country if it's wildfire, if it's ice
    storms, if it's drought that can also have significant impacts,
    and if we're preparing just for hurricanes and preparing for
    floods, we may be missing the point as far as preparing for
    some of these other disasters. And so we need to continue to
    figure out what's the best way to develop a diverse resiliency
    grid that can deal with as many problems as possible.
        Mr. Crist. Maybe we should talk about those then. If we're
    talking about fire, isn't it probably better to have your
    transmission lines underground than aboveground also?
        Dr. Dillingham. I would assume so, yes, because you're
    taking away that risk.
        Mr. Crist. And if you're talking about ice, wouldn't the
    same hold?
        Dr. Dillingham. For ice it could, but then you're--you're
    looking at just a significant increase in the cost when you
    bury lines versus having them aboveground, and so it becomes
    how much are we willing to pay to have that additional
    resilience in there, and where is that funding going to come
    from them, and how much are we going to pass on to ratepayers
    in that regard? And that's just the tradeoff there. In many
    cases, particularly--except for pretty much flooding, you can
    have a more resilient system underground. It's just a--it's
    protected from those events. But are we willing to pay that
    additional cost to have that resilience in there?
        Mr. Crist. Maybe we should look at it this way. If you're
    talking about additional cost and you don't underground them
    but you keep replacing them aboveground, you've got that
    replacement cost every time or the repair cost every time
    versus maybe you come close to eliminating it.
        Dr. Dillingham. Absolutely right, but the way in which
    economics are typically valued into these projects is first
    costs and what is the first cost and that initial cost for me
    versus long-term lifecycle analysis, which needs to be
    considered further.
        Mr. Crist. Wouldn't it be more enlightened to consider the
    reality of, you know, having to replace over and over and over
    again versus the likelihood of maybe not?
        Dr. Dillingham. Absolutely, it's just that's not how
    decisions are made at this point. It's very much kind of a
    short-term viewpoint versus a long-term viewpoint and so----
        Mr. Crist. We're in this for the long haul.
        Dr. Dillingham. Oh, absolutely--you're absolutely right.
        Mr. Crist. Right.
        Dr. Dillingham. I agree with you on that. Yes.
        Mr. Crist. I yield my time. Thank you very much, sir.
        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Crist.
        The gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Norman, is
    recognized.
        Mr. Norman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to thank
    each of you for your testimony. It's been very interesting on a
    very important subject.
        Let me switch gears with you. Smart meters, Mr. Imhoff,
    what kind of information is gathered and how is it used?
        Mr. Imhoff. The smart meters typically monitor consumption
    in the home. The utilities then use that to support their
    billing function, and then in addition, the utilities use them
    in support of their outage management systems to help detect in
    real time when outages occur. Today, the majority of utilities
    still wait for a phone call from a customer to inform them that
    the power is out in a distribution feeder area. But in areas
    that are served by a combination of smart meters and then
    distribution automation devices in the substation have
    delivered substantial improvements.
        Vista in Washington State, an investor-owned utility there,
    as they moved to distribution and smart metering, they reduced
    the frequency of outages by 21 percent for the customers and
    they reduced the duration of outages by ten percent and in a
    very cost-effective fashion. So typically, that's how that
    information is used, to support the billing and the outage
    management systems. I'm not aware of any other key value
    streams.
        Mr. Norman. Let me ask you this. What is your opinion? Are
    privacy and security concerns on the information that is
    gathered something that we ought to--that the customer ought to
    be concerned with? And is it encrypted in your--from what you
    know?
        Dr. Sanders. So, thank you very much for that question.
    I'll jump in. So with regard to the--well, to answer your
    question simply, there are many different brands of smart
    meters, there are many different schemes that are being used,
    but in general, yes, the information is encrypted, and steps
    are taken for privacy.
        With regard to cybersecurity issues and the meters, there's
    probably less concern about privacy but a potential concern
    that again is being thought about carefully so the sky is not
    falling but potential concerns with regard to someone who may
    try to gain control of their--those smart meters from the
    outside. So smart meters do have the ability to control power
    flow to the house, and so one must design architectures--and
    those who are designing smart meters are well aware of this--
    that ensures that the control of those meters cannot be placed
    in the hands of an adversary.
        Mr. Norman. And we would depend on experts like each of you
    to tell us which meters, as technology improves, can avoid some
    of this because, as Congressman Banks said, the--when you
    mentioned cybersecurity hacks, particularly with the Chinese
    with the military, their face gets very serious and it's a huge
    problem.
        And, Dr. Dillingham, again, back on the underground versus
    overhead, I'm a--we're a developer. I've seen the number of
    lines that are cut inadvertently and the problems that it has,
    additional to the heavy cost that it takes to put them
    underground and the rights-of-way that come with that, so I
    appreciate your--mentioning the cost because it's a huge
    factor.
        Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Norman.
        The gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Beyer, is recognized.
        Mr. Beyer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much, and thank
    all of you for being with us today.
        You know, it's very important that we're having this
    hearing, especially because our President is visiting Puerto
    Rico today. And it's in a time when we talk about electrical
    grid utility--resiliency, Puerto Rico has virtually no
    electrical grid to speak of. As FEMA Director Long said
    yesterday, ``Rebuilding Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria will
    be a Herculean effort.''
        The Army Corps of Engineers is doing temporary power right
    now, 74 generators in place, 400 to come, but I think, as of
    this morning, only a little more than five percent of Puerto
    Ricans have had their power restored. According to the Army
    Corps of Engineers, for some areas of Puerto Rico, it might
    take upwards of 10 months before their power is restored. And
    it's not just the electrical grid system that's in crisis. As
    of 3:00 p.m. yesterday, fewer than half of all Puerto Ricans
    had access to clean drinking water, limited to no cell phone
    service, 90,000 applications for FEMA assistance, we know of 16
    known fatalities, and that doesn't count those who may have
    died in their homes yet to be discovered. It's two weeks after
    Maria, but now we do finally have an aid package for Puerto
    Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
        So, Mr. Chairman, may I suggest perhaps a follow-up
    meeting--follow-up hearing on the resiliency of the electrical
    grid in Puerto Rico.
        And, Dr. Dillingham, if today was a hearing about how we
    should respond to Puerto Rico, based on your expertise, what
    solutions would you suggest to make the grid more resilient?
    What are the near-term solutions to bring power back faster to
    those, including renewables?
        Dr. Dillingham. Thank you for that question. This is very--
    absolutely a very important topic at this point. The
    significant problem within Puerto Rico was the lack of--the
    loss of the transmission distribution infrastructure. The power
    plants fared just fine there, and they have a fairly diverse
    set of power plants there from--they have natural gas plants,
    solar, wind, variety of plants. There was a transmission
    distribution infrastructure that went down and is going to take
    a while to get back up.
        When you look at the power prices within Puerto Rico and
    look at what are the different microgrid options that are out
    there, it makes--it's starting to make some pretty good
    economic sense to start seeing more solar battery deployments
    out there. We've already seen the--potentially the wall packs
    being donated by Tesla to some degree, but a wider distribution
    of these types of microgrid systems that are not dependent on
    fuel resources necessarily or not dependent on LNG terminals
    being on or transmission distribution terminals working or
    making sure that different types of fuel shipments make it
    there.
        And if you're in a hurricane-prone area such as Puerto
    Rico, the ability to have smaller resilient microgrid systems
    is probably the best effort. And the quickness in which you can
    deploy a microgrid system, especially solar battery system, is
    far--happens far more quickly than you can deploy any other
    type of infrastructure out there at this point.
        And when you look at models of what's happening in Hawaii,
    who has similar power costs, and you start seeing their
    distribution or their development and deployment of microgrids
    out there, it just--it's a good example to start looking at.
    The economics are there, the technology is there, and it's
    really just a matter of starting to introduce it.
        Mr. Beyer. Great. Great. Thank you very much. You know,
    this hurricane season, which isn't even over yet, it's
    generated more destructive storms than we've seen in a long
    time. Four of this year's storms became category 4 or 5 storms.
    Three of those made landfall in the United States. The
    University of Wisconsin called Harvey a 1,000-year flood, once
    every thousand years. Quote, ``Nothing in the historical record
    rivals this.'' Maria was the 10th-most intense hurricane ever.
    Jose and Irma, only time in recorded history that two active
    hurricanes simultaneously had wind speeds in excess of 150
    miles an hour.
        So while we talk about electrical grid, we cannot afford to
    avoid the larger-scale issue that these storms are becoming
    more intense as the climate warms as it changes. So, Mr. Baum,
    are utilities, especially those in Texas, taking climate
    change, the increasing severity of storms into account in their
    planning? What are you doing to upgrade the grid system to
    recognize that, you know, we're living in a world where the
    climate is changing?
        Mr. Baum. I think there's no question that we are taking
    into consideration the new normal after events like this. And
    as I stated earlier, we had a substation in Houston that
    flooded that had not flooded in 50 years. That substation is
    now being rebuilt to prepare for, you know, what is now the
    flood of record. And I think all of the design that utilities
    do, it basically says, all right, what's the worst-case
    scenario that we've seen and now how do we build our system to
    prepare and be ready to face the next type of storm? So I
    definitely think practical planning is something that utilities
    are doing and will continue to do going forward.
        Mr. Beyer. Well, thank you for your vision and your answer.
    Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Beyer.
        The gentleman from Florida, Mr. Webster, is recognized.
        Mr. Webster. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for
    coming.
        I thought about, as Mr. Foster was talking about A.C. and
    D.C., maybe Edison will get a car named after him instead of
    the Tesla. And it's amazing all the things he's doing,
    including the battery packs that the company is sending are all
    D.C., and yet he was the greatest promoter of A.C. It's a kind
    of interesting switch of events.
        Mr. Baum, in Texas in the last hurricane, which just
    passed, was there a lot or minimal or in between those two
    damage to the high tension wires from the generator to, let's
    say, the substation, or were most of the outages caused by the
    lower voltages?
        Mr. Baum. A combination of both, but I would say most of
    the customer outages were caused by--on--were more on the
    distribution system that were caused by flooding and
    substations being out, which then knocks out the distribution
    system. But we did have some large--we had six of our largest
    345 kilovolt transmission lines were downed or damaged for a
    while during the storm, and a large number of smaller
    transmission lines were also affected. So it was both in this
    storm, transmission and distribution, which goes it--which
    again, the lights in the whole State never flickered, and a lot
    of that is because of the redundancy in both the transmission
    and the distribution network.
        Mr. Webster. So from just a hardening standpoint, is there
    any change that needs to be done to the high tension lines in
    order to make them more resilient?
        Mr. Baum. I think you're always looking at ways to
    develop----
        Mr. Webster. Let me ask you--my knowledge is from a long
    time ago, so are they still aluminum with steel cable running
    with them or is it--is there a new type of transmission wiring?
        Mr. Baum. Most of the transmission wiring is still as you
    described.
        Mr. Webster. Okay.
        Mr. Baum. I think if there are advancements being made, a
    lot of it is in the structures that hold up the transmission
    lines and finding ways to design those better to withstand
    storms.
        Mr. Webster. So what was the cause of a structure? Was it
    external flying debris or was it water or what was it that
    would----
        Mr. Baum. With our transmission lines that were affected,
    it was high winds that were twisting the structures that hold
    up the lines or--and you didn't really have a lot of lines
    breaking. It was more high winds twisting the structures that
    holds them up that brought down power lines.
        Mr. Webster. So was there--is--would there be an effort now
    to come up with a better way to build those structures or to
    harden them in any way?
        Mr. Baum. I think definitely. We have a new Chair of our
    Public Utility Commission. DeAnn Walker was just named after
    the storm, and the--at a meeting last week, she basically said
    let's get the utilities and other providers together to see
    what ways we can improve for the next storm, and I'm sure
    that's one of the things that we'll be looking at.
        Mr. Webster. I mean, I would think that we'd be--building
    something like that would be a long-term--is there--was there a
    way--you were talking about rerouting, doing some other things.
    Were those all able to be rerouted around those structures that
    fell or were twisted?
        Mr. Baum. We--they were able--through a combination of
    rerouting and having some power plants that our grid operator
    contracts with to ramp-up to provide voltage support to some of
    those areas that were affected by the lines that went down, and
    so there were ways to make it to where this did not--the loss
    of the transmission system didn't cause a cascading effect.
        Mr. Webster. Okay. I yield back.
        Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Webster.
        That concludes our questions for the day. Thank you all for
    your wonderful testimony. It was very enlightening to us, and
    we have lots to do on our part as well.
        So I appreciate everybody being here, and we stand
    adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 12:06 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]

                                   Appendix I

                                  ----------

                       Answers to Post-Hearing Questions

                       Answers to Post-Hearing Questions

    Responses by Mr. Carl Imhof

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

    Responses by Dr. Gavin Dillingham

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    Responses by Mr. Walt Baum

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                                  Appendix II

                                  ----------

                       Additional Material for the Record

                        Statement submitted by Committee
                      Ranking Member Eddie Bernice Johnson

    [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                      Document submitted by Representative
                                 Marc A. Veasey

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