2003 MAJOR POWER GRID

BLACKOUTS IN
NORTH AMERICA AND EUROPE

Copyright © P. Kundur
This material should not be used without the author's consent
1539pk
August 14, 2003 Blackout of Northeast US
and Canada

MPB- 1
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 14 August 2003 Blackout
of Northeast US - Canada

 Approximately 50 million people in 8 states in the

US and 2 Canadian provinces affected

 63 GW of load interrupted (11% of total load

supplied by Eastern North American
Interconnected System)

 During this disturbance, over 400 transmission lines

and 531 generating units at 261 power plants tripped

 For details refer to: "Final Report of Aug 14, 2003

Blackout in the US and Canada: Causes and
Recommendations", US-Canada Power System
Outage Task Force, April 5, 2004. www.NERC.com

MPB- 2
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NERC Regions Affected:
MAAC, ECAR, NPCC

MPB- 3
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Aug 14, 2003 US-Canada Blackout

Conditions Prior to Blackout

 Electricity demand high but not unusually high

 Power transfer levels high, but within established
limits and previous operating conditions
 Planned outages of generating units in the affected
area: Cook 2, Davis Bess plant, East Lake 4, Sammis
3 and Monroe 1
 Reactive power supply problems in the regions of
Indiana and Ohio prior to noon
 Operators took actions to boost voltages
 voltages within limits
 System operating in compliance with NERC
operating policies prior to 15:05 Eastern Daylight
Time

MPB- 4
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Blackout Started in Midwest

MPB- 5
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Aug 14, 2003 US-Canada Blackout

Sequence of Events

 The Midwest ISO (MISO) state estimator and real-

time contingency analysis (RTCA) software not
functioning properly from 12:15 to 16:04
 prevented MISO from performing proper "early
warning" assessments as the events were
unfolding
 At the First Energy (FE) Control Center, a number of
computer software problems occurred on the
Energy Management System (EMS) starting at 14:14
 contributed to inadequate situation awareness
at FE until 15:45
 The first significant event was the outage of East
Lake generating unit #5 in the FE system at 13:31:34
 producing high reactive power output
 voltage regulator tripped to manual on
overexcitation
 unit tripped when operator tried to restore AVR

cont'd

MPB- 6
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East Lake 5 Trip: 1:31:34 pm

ONTARIO

MPB- 7
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Aug 14, 2003 US-Canada Blackout

Sequence of Events cont'd

 Initial line trips in Ohio, all due to tree contact:

 Chamberlin-Harding 345 kV line at 15:05:41
 Hanna-Juniper 345 kV line at 15:32:03
 Star-South Canton 345 kV line at 15:41:35
 Due to EMS failures at FE and MISO control centers,
no proper actions (such as load shedding) taken
 Critical event leading to widespread cascading
outages in Ohio and beyond was tripping of
Sammis-Star 345 kV line at 16:05:57
 Zone 3 relay operation due to low voltage and
high power flow
 Load shedding in northeast Ohio at this stage could
have prevented cascading outages that following

MPB- 8
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 (3:05:41)
(3:32:03)

Star- S. Canton (3:41:35)

MPB- 9
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 Sammis-Star
(4:05:57.5)

MPB- 10
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Aug 14, 2003 US-Canada Blackout

Sequence of Events

 Tripping of many additional 345 kV lines in Ohio and

Michigan by Zone 3 (or Zone 2 set similar to Zone 3)
relays
 Tripping of several generators in Ohio and Michigan
 At 16:10:38, due to cascading loss of major lines in
Ohio and Michigan, power transfer from Canada
(Ontario) to the US on the Michigan border shifted
 power started flowing counter clockwise from
Pennsylvania through New York and Ontario
into Michigan
 3700 MW of reverse power flow to serve loads
in Michigan and Ohio, which were severed
from rest of interconnected system except
Ontario
 Voltage collapsed due to extremely heavy loadings
on transmission lines
 Cascading outages of several hundred lines and
generators leading to blackout of the region

MPB- 11
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Power Transfers Shift at 4:10:38.6 pm

MPB- 12
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Generator Trips to 16:10:38

MPB- 13
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Generator Trips - Next 7 Seconds

MPB- 14
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Northeast Completes Separation from
Eastern Interconnection
4:10:43 - 4:10:45 pm

MPB- 15
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Generator Trips - After 16:10:44

MPB- 16
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End of Cascade

Some Local Load

Interrupted

Areas Affected by the Blackout

Service maintained
in some area

MPB- 17
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 Primary Causes of Blackout
(as identified by the US-Canada Outage Task Force)

1. Inadequate understanding of the power system

requirements:

 First Energy (FE) failed to conduct rigorous

long-term planning studies and sufficient
voltage stability analyses of Ohio control area
 FE used operational criteria that did not reflect
actual system behaviour and needs
 ECAR (East Central Area Reliability Council)
did not conduct an independent review or
analysis of FE's voltage criteria and operating
needs
 Some NERC planning standards were
sufficiently ambiguous that FE could interpret
them in a way that resulted in inadequate
reliability for system operation

cont'd

MPB- 18
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 Causes of Blackout cont'd

2. Inadequate level of situation awareness:

 FE failed to ensure security of its system after
significant unforeseen contingencies
 FE lacked procedures to ensure that its
operators were continually aware of the
functional state of their critical monitoring
tools
 FE did not have adequate backup tools for
system monitoring

3. Inadequate level of vegetation management (tree

trimming)
 FE failed to adequately manage tree growth
into transmission rights-of-way
 resulted in the outage of three 345 kV
lines and one 138 kV line

cont'd

MPB- 19
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 Causes of Blackout cont'd

4. Inadequate level of support from the Reliability

Coordinator
 due to failure of state estimator, MISO did not
become aware of FE's system problems early
enough
 did not provide assistance to FE

 MISO and PJM (Regional Transmission

operator) did not have in place an adequate
level of procedures and guidelines for dealing
with security limit violations due to a
contingency near their common boundary

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 September 23, 2003 Blackout of
Southern Sweden and Eastern Denmark

MPB- 21
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The Transmission Grid in The Nordic
Countries

MPB- 22
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 Blackout of 23 September 2003 in
Southern Sweden and Eastern Denmark

 Pre-disturbance conditions:
 system moderately loaded
 facilities out of services for maintenance:
400 kV lines in South Sweden
4 nuclear units in South Sweden
3 HVDC links to Germany and Poland
 The first contingency was loss of a 1200 MW nuclear unit
in South Sweden at 12:30 due to problems with steam
valves
 increase of power transfer from the north
 system security still acceptable
 Five minutes later (at 12:35) a disconnector damage
caused a double busbar fault at a location 300 km away
from the first contingency
 resulted in loss of a number of lines in the
southwestern grid and two 900 MW nuclear units
 At 12:37, voltage collapse in the eastern grid section
south of Stockholm area
 isolated southern Sweden and eastern Denmark
system from northern and central grid
cont'd

MPB- 23
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The Blackout in Southern Sweden and
Eastern Denmark, September 23, 2003

At 12.30: Loss of a 1200 MW

Nuclear Unit

MPB- 24
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The Blackout in Southern Sweden and
Eastern Denmark, September 23, 2003

At 12.35: Double bus-bar fault leading to

-Loss of two 900 MW Nuclear Units
-Disrupture of the south-western grid

MPB- 25
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 The Blackout in Southern Sweden and
Eastern Denmark, September 23, 2003

Hallsberg

Glan
Voltage Collapse
Kimstad
Kolstad

Strömma Tenhult
Simpevarp
Horred

Breared Alvesta
Nybro Isolated Subsystem
Hemsjö
Söderåsen

Barsebäck Line outages due to:

The fault in Horred
Maintenance work
The voltage collapse

MPB- 26
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 The Blackout in Southern Sweden and
Eastern Denmark, September 23, 2003

The blacked-out area after the grid separation at 12.37

MPB- 27
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 Blackout of 23 September 2003 in
Southern Sweden and Eastern Denmark
cont'd

 The isolated system had enough generation to cover

only about 30% of its demand
 voltage and frequency collapsed within a few
seconds, blacking out the area

 Impact of the blackout:

 loss of 4700 MW load in south Sweden
1.6 million people affected
City of Malmo and regional airports and rail
transportation without power
 loss of 1850 MW in eastern Denmark
2.4 million people affected
City of Copenhagen, airport and rail
transportation without power

 Result of an (n-3) contingency, well beyond "design

contingencies"

MPB- 28
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September 28, 2003 Blackout of Italy

MPB- 29
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 Italian System Blackout of
28 September 2003

 Predisturbance conditions (Sunday, 3:00 am):

 total load in Italy was 27,700 MW, with 3638 MW
pump load
 total import from rest of Europe was 6651 MW
 Sequence of events:
 a tree flashover caused tripping of a major tie-line
between Italy and Switzerland (Mettlen-Lavorgo
380 kV line) at 03:01:22
 Sychro-check relay prevented automatic and manual
reclosure of line due to the large angle (42°) across
the breaker
 resulted in an overload on a parallel path
 attempts to reduce the overload by Swiss
transmission operators by network change was not
successful
 at 03:21 import by Italy was reduced by 300 MW but
was not sufficient to mitigate the overload of a
second 380 kV line (Sils-Soazza), which tripped at
03:25:22 due to sag and tree contact
cont'd

MPB- 30
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 Italian System Blackout of
28 September 2003 cont'd

 the cascading trend continued and the power

deficit in Italy was such that the ties to France,
Austria and Slovania were tripped
 the outages left the Italian system with a
power shortage of 6400 MW
 the frequency decay could not be controlled
adequately by under-frequency load shedding
 over the course of several minutes, the entire
Italian System collapsed at 3:28:00
 The blackout affected about 60 million people
 total energy not delivered 180 GWh
 worst blackout in the history of Italy
 power was restored after 3 hours in the
northern area and during the same day for
most of Italy

MPB- 31
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