Re: big blackout

On Mon, 6 Nov 2006 02:00:16 +0000 (UTC), the renowned
kensmith@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Ken Smith) wrote:

In article <454E780D.3E2AE265@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Michael A. Terrell <mike.terrell@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
[....]
After that line that runs through Canada, and back to the US failed a
few years ago, some people on this newsgroup were bragging that you
would NEVER have these kinds of failures in any European country.

but ... but ... none of the power for europe goes through Canada so they
couldn't, could they?

Anyway, the problems that caused the blackout (equipment failures and
computer and operator control system problems) were not in Canada,
they were in Ohio.

There were six distinct violations of NERC policy by FirstEnergy which
were the direct cause of the massive blackout (see pdf page 33 of the
full report). The initial trigger was failure (due to inadequate
maintenance) of the Harding-Chamberlin 345kV line in Ohio.

Ontario was actually importing small amounts of power (compared to the
24,000 MW total consumption) from Manitoba, Quebec, New York state to
the East and Michigan to the West. The Ontario grid got pulled down
along with the rest of the Northeastern power grid.

See pdf page 70 on the full report for the power surges over the few
minutes before all the lights went off.

full report from the task force:
http://www.nrcan-rncan.gc.ca/media/docs/814BlackoutReport.pdf

Hydro One's interim report:
http://www.energy.gov.on.ca/english/pdf/electricity/August%2014%202003%20Incident%20Report.pdf

There are a lot of logistics associated with startup and shutdown of
nuclear plants (where a lot of Ontario's electricity comes from) and
that didn't help. Bringing the grid back up had to proceed from
isolated islands of remaining power. Most of the system worked as
designed. All the nuclear reactors shut down safely. An oil refinery
complex about 15 miles from me had to go into emergency shutown,
causing an explosion that I could hear easily. Took about a week to
bring it back up again.


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
--
"it's the network..." "The Journey is the reward"
speff@xxxxxxxxxxxx Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog Info for designers: http://www.speff.com
.

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