“I think we need to get a better generator”: Household resilience to disruption to power supply during storm events

Dana Abi Ghanem, Sarah Mander and Clair Gough

Energy Policy, 2016, vol. 92, issue C, 171-180

Abstract: Electricity is becoming ever more central to the everyday practices of households. As the energy system decarbonises, it is likely that electricity will supply even more services, thereby increasing the dependence of communities on reliable electricity supply. In this situation, the risk of power outages during extreme weather events poses a serious challenge to the safety and wellbeing of communities. However, little is known of the capacity of households to manage normal day-to-day life in such circumstances. This paper focuses on the UK winter storms that occurred in February 2014, the result of which 80,000 homes were left without power and communities not reconnected for several days. We outline the impacts these power outages had on households, describing the challenges faced and the strategies adopted to alleviate impacts. This provides insight into everyday household-level resilience achieved through social and material elements that constitute everyday life.

Keywords: Power outage; Climate change adaptation; Electricity network resilience; UK storm; Everyday practices (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421516300453
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:enepol:v:92:y:2016:i:c:p:171-180

DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2016.02.003

Access Statistics for this article

Energy Policy is currently edited by N. France

More articles in Energy Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().