Document Type : Research Paper
Authors
1 Assistant Professor, Management and Social Science Department, Niroo Research Institute, Tehran, Iran
2 Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Public Administration, Faculty of Management, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
3 Project Manager, Department of Electrical Engineering, METCO Company, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
Climate change and drought have intensified significantly in recent decades across the country, leading to the proliferation of dust storms in various regions, including in Khuzestan province. One of the adverse effects of dust storms is affecting the power grid and even causing blackouts in some cases. A disaster that occurred in February 2017 in Khuzestan province and had numerous economic consequences. This article proposes a model to estimate the costs associated with power outages. The proxy method is employed to quantify these costs, encompassing lost production for various industrial, agricultural, and public sectors, as well as lost utility for residential customers and revenue losses for electricity companies in Khuzestan province. The results indicate that the damages and costs to the society due to the lost production in medium load are equal to 2597 billion Rials and the damage caused by unsold electricity, which is a kind of damage to the electric companies of Khuzestan province, in medium load. It was equal to 32.4 billion rials. Considering the amount of damage, it is concluded that planning the stability of the country's electricity network, especially in areas prone to dust phenomenon, should be given serious attention.
Introduction
Among energy carriers, electricity has a special place as secondary energy. Electricity supply is the economic foundation of an industrial country, so that without electricity, industries will not be able to produce, and citizens will not have tools for comfort (Kenward & Raja, 2014). Khuzestan province is considered as the economic and industrial hub of Iran, so after Tehran, it has the largest share in the country's gross domestic product. The existence of major and vital industries such as oil, gas, petrochemicals, and steel are examples of economic and industrial activities in this province. According to the explanations mentioned at the beginning about the importance of electricity in economic and industrial life, the stability of the electricity network in Khuzestan province is very important. Khuzestan electricity network with more than 12,000 Megawatts of power generation capacity and more than 8,000 Kilometers of transmission and distribution network circuits and 200 substations has a high rank in terms of importance in the country's electricity network. But what has affected the stability of this network in the past years is the destructive phenomenon of dust storms. One of the cases that caused widespread disruption in the electricity network of Khuzestan was a heavy dust storm that happened in February 2017, the concentration of dust on this day was 9985 micrograms per cubic meter and 66 times the permissible limit, and due to the high humidity of 90 % caused the electricity of Ahvaz city and parts of Khuzestan province to be cut off. As a result of these blackouts, the drinking water supply system, telecommunication system, mobile phone, internet, etc. were disrupted and administrative and educational centers were closed, crude oil production stopped at some point. Due to the large scale of the disaster, it was necessary to calculate its damages in a study, and this article is organized accordingly. This research aims to determine the importance of electricity supply stability in the country, especially in Khuzestan province.
Methods and Material
The purpose of this study is to calculate the costs of power outages in February 2017 in Khuzestan province. These costs are divided into two parts, the first part is related to the costs of unsupplied electricity due to blackouts, which are actually incurred by the electricity supply companies in Khuzestan. The second part is also related to the calculation of the costs that society suffered due to blackouts. The sum of these two parts results in the total cost of damages caused by blackouts in February 2017 in Khuzestan province. In this research, in order to calculate the costs of the disaster, the proxy method was chosen. With the help of representative variables, that is, the average electricity tariff, lost production, and lost leisure, and depending on the duration of the blackout, blackout costs are obtained.
Results and Discussion
The main goal of this research was to introduce a framework for calculating damages caused by power outages. In this research, with the help of the representative method and the value of unsupplied electricity, a comprehensive model was used to calculate the blackout costs in Khuzestan province in February 2017. The sum of the costs calculated in two parts, i.e. damage caused by unsupplied electricity and damage caused by lost production, shows the total costs of electricity outages in Khuzestan province. At the same time, it should be noted that the damage caused to the society (industries, businesses, and households) is much more than the damage to the electricity supply, so it is necessary to invest in the maintenance and promotion of sustainable electricity supply in Khuzestan province. By strengthening the power grid in the event of repeated dust storms, the grid will not collapse and extensive damage will be prevented (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Comparison of costs of unsupplied electricity and lost production due to outages) in billions of Rials)
Power outage reported
Min power load
Average power load
Conclusion
The findings of this research and similar cases can inform policy-making and decisions within the electricity industry in several key areas:
Ensuring the security of electricity supply in Khuzestan province,
Managing potential outages effectively,
Exploring energy pricing options,
Developing standards and guidelines within the Ministry of Energy and its subsidiaries for calculating the damages from power outages during crises,
Assessing the long-term costs associated with power outages.
Keywords
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