What Happens When the Power Goes Out?
Power outage at LAX underscores plans to build natural gas microgrid at Pittsburgh International
By Natalie Fiorilli
Published June 7, 2019
Read Time: 2 mins
For one of the busiest airports in the world, a power outage can cause major disruption – and that’s exactly what happened at Los Angeles International this week.
The Wednesday evening outage resulted in dozens of flight cancellations, diversions and delays. Officials at LAX said the hours-long disruption was a result of a “power bump” at an L.A. Department of Power and Water substation.
Outages like that, along with similar power failures at Washington’s Reagan International and Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta, have prompted some airports to consider building their own power facilities.
Pittsburgh International plans to generate energy onsite through a microgrid fueled by natural gas, said Tom Woodrow, PIT’s vice president of engineering. A microgrid is a localized network connected to larger multistate power grids that can also disconnect and operate autonomously.
Microgrids are more efficient and reduce the possibility of power outages because they generate their own energy, Woodrow said.
The airport could award a contract to build the microgrid by late summer or early fall.
“News of outages at other airports only emphasizes the importance of resiliency, which is exactly what we would be able to ac