What We'll Cover in this Conversation

Seth Guikema is an assistant professor of industrial and operations engineering and civil and environmental engineering at the University of Michigan. With a background in risk analysis operation research, he uses big-data analytics to predict the hurricane's effects and enable power companies, first responders and others to deploy resources more efficiently.

In this conversation, Perry and Seth discuss:

• Power systems, their reliability and how they handle natural disasters like hurricanes
 
• Hurricane power outage forecasting
 
• How companies work to mitigate and restore power
 
• How power restoration is prioritized
 
• Systematic impacts from Harvey and Irma
 
• What should utilities and public service commissions be doing to harden the system and what’s a reasonable cost?
 

Please keep in mind that this segment was filmed in September 2017 and may be slightly out-of-date. We hope that you find all of the content in this Teach-Out engaging and informative!

Reflection Questions

What are your thoughts about Perry's interview with Jeff? What do you think should be done in regards to mitigating the impacts of hurricanes on systems like the power grid? If you've experienced a hurricane or other extreme weather situation, what’s your perspective on how your community handled the damage and loss of power?