ERMUSR MISC. ISSUES 01-13-2004 - Laserfiche WebLink

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• Ontario and eastern Michigan separate Eastern Interconnection (the area within the dotted line in the map above) was blacked out. The Ontario-New York separation at 4:10:50 left Some isolated areas of generation and load New York's and Ontario's large hydro and some remained on line for several minutes. Some of tho thermal generators at Niagara and St. Lawrence, as areas in which a close generation-demand balanc.. well as the 765 kV and direct current interties with could be maintained remained operational; other Quebec, connected to the New York system, sup- generators ultimately tripped off line and the areas porting the demand in upstate New York just south they served were blacked out. of Lake Ontario. Three of the transmission circuits One relatively large island remained in operation near Niagara automatically reconnected Ontario to serving about 5700 MW of demand,mostly in west- . I New York at 4:10:56. Another 4500 MW of ern New York. This service was maintained by gen- Ontario demand automatically disconnected. At crating stations south of Lake Ontario with Ontario 4:11:10, the Niagara lines disconnected again, and generators at Niagara and St. Lawrence as well as New York and Ontario again separated. Most of the 765 kV and DC interties with Quebec. This Ontario blacked our after this separation, leaving island formed the basis for restoration in both New li - 22,500 MW of demand disconnected out of a total York and Ontario. demand of about 24,000 MW. The eastern New York island blacked out with only scattered small Conclusion pockets of service remaining. The western New This sequence of events for the August 14, 2003 York island continued to serve about 50% of the blackout summarizes some of the many significant demand in that island. events that occurred before and during this wide- When Long Mountain-Plum Tree (connected to spread and complex system failure. It reflects Pleasant Valley substation in New York) disconnect- events that have been identified and verified as of ed, it left southwestern Connecticut connected to September 10, 2003. Much more data collection, New York only through the 138 kV cable that cross- analysis, and research must be completed before es Long Island Sound.About 500 MW of southwest the Joint United States-Canada Power Outage Task Connecticut demand was disconnected by automatic Force will be able to state with confidence exactly grid operations. Twenty-two seconds later the Long what happened and why it happened. Our under I Island Sound cable disconnected,islanding southwest standing of the events described here, and of tho, I Connecticut and blacking it out. not yet fully catalogued, may change as the inves- tigation progresses.The Task Force's future reports 4:13 PM-Cascading sequence essentially complete will include a more detailed timeline, and will address the causal relationships among these The major portion of the northern section of the events. • NERC:Trying to Fill In the Blanks President Michel)! Gent Responds to Tauzin and Dingell Queries Mrchehl R. Gent is the President and Chief His education has Executive Officer of the North American been in engineering Electric Reliability Council (NERC) and is the and business, having -� . lead policy person for assuring a reliable bulk elec- earned his BSEE "' tricity supply system in North America. Mr. Gent at Texas AlrM joined NERC in 1980 as Executive Vice President and MSEE at and was elected President in 1982. Prior to join- the University of ing NERC, he served for seven years as the Southern California.' General Manager of the Florida Electric Power He has taught in the Coordinating Group—a voluntary power pool for graduate schools of all of Florida's electric utilities. Before Florida, he USC and Loyola, and worked for ten years with the Los Angeles is a registered profes- Department of Water trr Power m both operations" ' sional engineer: Michehl it Gent,Prey derdNb! and planning positions. American Electrical Rilinbilky.' Council. 36 1 4th Quarter 2003 .