Keeping the Lights On: How DOE Complements the Energy Sector's Unified Crisis Response Efforts

摘要

While the phenomenon of electricity is nothing new, it's easy to forget the dramatic progress that has led it to permeate modern life. I'm referring not only to technological breakthroughs, but to the agreements among electric companies and other stakeholders that have grown over decades of relationships in the sector-often realized in the form of mutual assistance networks. The dynamic system of mutual assistance is designed to direct available resources to the areas of greatest need when demand for their services overwhelms local capacity, typically following a major storm or disaster. This voluntary network is nothing new, but it is as important to reliable electricity and our nation's overall energy security as any innovation since Edison lit up Manhattan in the 1880s.