The toll of more frequent power outages grows as our lives become more electric

When a Wildwood electrical substation fire knocked out electricity to 24,000 customers on Friday, it sent the island’s tourists and residents searching for desperately needed electricity to power their devices.

The J. Byrne Community Center had been set up as a cooling center over the 40 hours it took to fully restore power on the island. But many people were coming in not so much for cooling but to “recharge batteries for things such as laptops and medical equipment,” an employee said on Saturday morning.

» READ MORE: All utility customers in the Wildwoods will have power back Sunday morning, utility says

We increasingly live a lifestyle that demands reliable electricity. According to a report from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), electricity consumption in 2020 was “14 times greater than electricity use in 1950.”

And nothing sends electric use skyrocketing like a hot summer afternoon when air conditioning is most needed. Temperatures in Wildwood were in the mid-80s when the power went out over the weekend.

While Atlantic City Electric, utility provider for the island, has not yet released the cause of the substation fire, the combination of extreme weather, an aging power grid, and increased electrical demand is making blackouts more common. According to the EIA report, extreme weather events alone account for about seven out of ten outages per year in the U.S.

Increased demand overtaxes aging electric power grids and leads to blackouts, resulting in a long list of things that don’t work without electricity — air conditioners, traffic lights, elevators, credit card machines, gas pumps, refrigerators, ATMs, arcades, waterparks, medical equipment, hotel keycard readers, ice machines, and more.

“Luckily I had stopped to get ice cream money,” tourist Ashley DiTonno said sitting on a porch in Wildwood Friday night. The pizza place where her family was picking up dinner was cash-only due to the power outage.

The typical American endured about seven hours of power outages in 2021, and the U.S. Department of Energy estimated that outages cost the U.S. economy $150 billion annually.

Low-income communities like Wildwood, where almost one out of four residents lives below the poverty line, are particularly hard-hit by blackouts. Workers lose pay as businesses close, and parents have to put out more money in their scramble to find alternative sources of daycare when schools and childcare centers shutdown.

Atlantic City Electric announced last month the completion of two major reliability improvement projects in Cape May County designed to make the electric grid more durable and electric service more reliable during extreme weather events.

“We have seen the devastation and impact that extreme weather events can have in our communities and understand the challenges customers face when outages occur,” said Tamla Olivier, senior vice president and COO of Pepco Holdings, which includes Atlantic City Electric.

“Projects like these are further strengthening the local energy grid against the increasing frequency of major storms, while contributing to record reliability for our customers over the past several years.”

Inquirer staff writer Felicia Gans Sobey contributed to this article.