Security Vulnerability Trends Related to Electric Power Supplied at Military Installations

The United States (U.S.) electric grid is considered one of the greatest inventions of the twentieth century, yet it become apparent over the past few decades that it is not without its own set of problems. The deregulation of the U.S. electric system in the late 1990s eliminated monopolies and resulted in the nation's generation, transmission, and distribution systems becoming separate entities owned and operated by multiple companies. This created a market economy in which many electric companies failed to plan for the future, did not invest in maintenance and upgrades, and began to push the aggregate system to its maximum capacity. A number of cascading power outages in the late 1990s, culminated by the complete blackout of the northeastern U.S. in 2003, have subsequently caused the federal government to question the reliability of the nation's deregulated electric grid and take action to remedy current issues.