Do We Need Resiliencies?

While a reading an article in #The Economist, I was shocked to see more than 2 deadly earth-quakes hitting Japan and Ecuador on the
opposite sides of the Pacific in the same week. Japan has the strictest building codes in the world and still a 7.0 quake on Richter scale
killed 42 people and injured thousands. We generally wake up when disaster hits us. Today neither developed nor emerging world is prepared
for the "Nature's Furious assaults".

Today there is  a forecast from Skymet, a weather forecasting company, that India is going to have 109% of average rains in 2016. These days
rains don't come over 3 to 4 days but it just pounds us with 100-200mm over 5-10 hours, so we need to prepare for such incidents through our resilient systems.

  How can we be prepared for natural disasters?  
 

The critical transport infrastructure was down so was telecom because DG Sets were out of diesel within first 5 hours. During super-storm Sandy, 25% telecom tower's went out of power immediately and disconnected millions of people on the East Cost of USA. In addition, diesel can't be supplied during floods or natural disaster and DG sets can't be run for 72 hours without a stop.

Fuel Cells offers resilience: Way back in 2003, massive grid failure happened in North America,  fuel cells offered consistent supply for as much as 48hours to critical infrastructure like Police Station, NY, USA. Otherwise, most of the critical infrastructure like hospitals and transport systems were down for days. Equally worse was the situation during Chennai floods. Indian telecom staff ( of Bharati Infratel and Indus Towers)  had to carry diesel to the towers and power the DG sets manually during Chennail floods. The staff of both tower companies had done a great service to the nation by powering telecom sites during emergency.

Use of fuel cell engines, for powering critical telecom towers across major cities, could offer us resilience of 3 days in a cost effective manner. Since fuel cell costs are 3 times DG sets, it can not be recommended to all telecom sites in emerging markets. But it can be offered to all emergency services to defence installations and emergency services like healthcare, water and transport for sure.

The first life saving tool is Telecom Resilience as it allows the victims to reach out to rescue teams/ operations. Thus to have effective relief operations, telecom towers must be structurally strong to withstand an earth-quake/ super-storm. There after they need to have energy so that these towers remain operational.

The second is going to be the Energy Resilience, the affected people need electricity to survive during the disasters. If lifts/ elevators are not operational, patients could not be moved out of hospitals. Energy for transport would the second most important factor to bring in rescue teams and move people to safe locations.

The third is Transport Resilience through strict building codes like Japan. The safety of the people purely depends on the strength of the buildings, roads and bridges. Transport infrastructure definitely helps in moving rescue teams in and affected people out of the affected area.

  How can we build resilience in telecom?  

Telecom companies can operate their networks as long as electricity is supplied to telecom towers. Indian telecom towers are generally powered with grid but need to keep diesel generation sets (DG Sets) for power back up (BUP). In rural areas, some of the telecom towers are powered with diesel for 20 hours a day because grid supply is not only reliable but works for few hours only.

We have seen, during Srinagar floods, India (2014) or Chennai floods, India (2015) , that the rescue efforts come after 24-36 hours and it takes at least 24 hours to restore electricity after the floods recede. The DG sets don't provide resilience because they are out of service within department doesn't permit them to store so much diesel. Learning from these experiences, we must have at least 3-7 days of resilience for emergency services.

Diesel can't provide resilience: As shown in a picture above, we can see the flooded Chennai airport during December 2015 floods.

 
  How can we build resilience in energy?  

We need energy for powering our equipment or power transport. As shown in pictures below, the hardship to patients and medical staff in NY hospitals could have been avoided if they had their own micro-grid of photovoltaic with energy storage. Critical infrastructure of hospitals like
lifts, information systems, operation theatres and critical care units could be powered with such a simple energy solution and cost will not be
more than diesel despite being 100% clean.

According to Indian Express, hundreds of patients in MIOT, Chennai (India) hospital spent 3 days in dark chambers and 18 people died due to
lack of ventilation/ oxygen because there was no power after DG set went out of diesel. No point in blaming local authorities as they were also helpless with no diesel to fire DG set. We can save thousand of lives during massive floods or other disasters only with our own resilient
systems. The electrical utilities can ensures supply only after 7 days because they need to check the network damages and conduct repairs.

Emergency services like police stations, railway stations, bus terminals, airports, water utilities, telecom companies and financial infrastructure must have built in resilience because grid-failures are not frequent but they are getting prolonged. State Bank of India had to open cash-points run on DG sets to ensure that people can withdraw their own money as all ATMs in Chennai were without power or cash.

  How can we build resilience in transport?  

To ensure safety of all, construction of transport infrastructure must be built with stringent building codes like they have in Japan. If we provide
energy resilience through emergency fuels and complete power back to airports, railways stations and bus terminals for 3-7 days through
micro-grids powered by renewables with energy storage or fuel cells. Fuel cells is the only source of power than can offer 7 days of 100%
clean resilience even-if sky is clouded. Fuel Cell engines can run non-stop for 172 hours without noise, that's the most beautiful part of them. 
They are 100% clean energy providers if hydrogen is produced through electrolysis.
Let's take a look at NY city after super-storm Sandy hit the city with devastating floods, the transportation had collapsed for days. Considering transportation as life-blood of the cities, the thousands were stranded at such places without power for weeks. Similar was the situation at
Chennai railways and airport.

  Running large transportation units on micro-grids could be the solution, all major airports in India have solar PV installations today, if they install energy storage, they can keep critical electric supply despite disconnecting from grid for days. Some of these airports have ground mounted PV installations that could be flooded, but they can also have smaller PV installations on the rooftop so that critical infrastructure and lighting continues to be up and running.
Next steps...
Governments should bring out resilience policies as a part of natural disaster relief and regulators of telecom, energy and transport sectors should make it compulsory to have at least 24-72 hours of resilience for critical infrastructure. Instead of blaming local authorities, we should help them to build energy resilience to counter natural disasters. These initiative are for all and hence the private sector and public sector should work together to make our cities resilient to natural disasters like super-storm Sandy, NY (2012, USA), Srinagar floods, (2014, India) and Chennai floods (2015, India)

Article by : Prasad Dahapute
Founder and Managing Director
Varhad Capital