Summer Season: Why Cogen Should Become Commonplace to Mitigate Brownouts and Blackouts, Especially in Urban Centers
As the Mercury rises during summer, so does the risk of rolling brownouts and blackouts in densely populated cities. Brownouts happen if there is a drop in electrical power or in the overall power supply. While brownouts do not cause complete power loss, they impact equipment performance and can make for a very unpleasant, stifling hot existence. Blackouts, on the other hand, can arrest everyday life and cause shutdowns to transportation, business operations and daily life routines. Being that this is a complete loss of power for an extended period of time, it typically impacts large numbers of people throughout incredibly large areas. Blackouts usually result from major damage to electrical generation facilities and repair times can take days, if not weeks. The areas that are most prone to power outages are high population centers. If they don’t have enough capacity to reliably serve a population, it can lead to brownouts or rolling blackouts. These regions need to serve a lot of p...