Blackout

About: Blackout is a(n) research topic. Over the lifetime, 2088 publication(s) have been published within this topic receiving 30433 citation(s).

Structural vulnerability of the North American power grid

Abstract: The magnitude of the August 2003 blackout affecting the United States has put the challenges of energy transmission and distribution into limelight. Despite all the interest and concerted effort, the complexity and interconnectivity of the electric infrastructure precluded us for a long time from understanding why certain events happened. In this paper we study the power grid from a network perspective and determine its ability to transfer power between generators and consumers when certain nodes are disrupted. We find that the power grid is robust to most perturbations, yet disturbances affecting key transmision substations greatly reduce its ability to function. We emphasize that the global properties of the underlying network must be understood as they greatly affect local behavior.

Causes of the 2003 major grid blackouts in North America and Europe, and recommended means to improve system dynamic performance

Abstract: On August 14, 2003, a cascading outage of transmission and generation facilities in the North American Eastern Interconnection resulted in a blackout of most of New York state as well as parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Ontario, Canada. On September 23, 2003, nearly four million customers lost power in eastern Denmark and southern Sweden following a cascading outage that struck Scandinavia. Days later, a cascading outage between Italy and the rest of central Europe left most of Italy in darkness on September 28. These major blackouts are among the worst power system failures in the last few decades. The Power System Stability and Power System Stability Controls Subcommittees of the IEEE PES Power System Dynamic Performance Committee sponsored an all day panel session with experts from around the world. The experts described their recent work on the investigation of grid blackouts. The session offered a unique forum for discussion of possible root causes and necessary steps to reduce the risk of blackouts. This white paper presents the major conclusions drawn from the presentations and ensuing discussions during the all day session, focusing on the root causes of grid blackouts. This paper presents general conclusions drawn by this Committee together with recommendations based on lessons learned.

Complex systems analysis of series of blackouts: Cascading failure, critical points, and self-organization

Abstract: We give an overview of a complex systems approach to large blackouts of electric power transmission systems caused by cascading failure. Instead of looking at the details of particular blackouts, we study the statistics and dynamics of series of blackouts with approximate global models. Blackout data from several countries suggest that the frequency of large blackouts is governed by a power law. The power law makes the risk of large blackouts consequential and is consistent with the power system being a complex system designed and operated near a critical point. Power system overall loading or stress relative to operating limits is a key factor affecting the risk of cascading failure. Power system blackout models and abstract models of cascading failure show critical points with power law behavior as load is increased. To explain why the power system is operated near these critical points and inspired by concepts from self-organized criticality, we suggest that power system operating margins evolve slowly to near a critical point and confirm this idea using a power system model. The slow evolution of the power system is driven by a steady increase in electric loading, economic pressures to maximize the use of the grid, and the engineering responses to blackouts that upgrade the system. Mitigation of blackout risk should account for dynamical effects in complex self-organized critical systems. For example, some methods of suppressing small blackouts could ultimately increase the risk of large blackouts.

Final report on the August 14, 2003 blackout in the United States and Canada : causes and recommendations

Abstract: This final report by the U.S.-Canada Power System Outage Task Force examines the electricity system before and during the massive power outage on August 14, 2003 which affected approximately 50 million people in the Midwest and Northeast United States and Ontario, Canada. The report identifies the causes of the outage and why they were not contained. It also gives recommendations to prevent or minimize future blackouts, some of which include implementing reliability standards and increasing the physical and cyber security of the network. The four group causes for the blackout have been identified as: (1) inadequate system understanding, (2) inadequate situational awareness, (3) inadequate tree trimming, and (4) inadequate reliability coordinator diagnostic support. This final report covers work done by 3 working groups which focused on the electric system, security and nuclear facilities. The chapters of this report dealt with the following issues: the North American electric power system and its reliability organizations; causes of the blackout and violations of North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) standards; preconditions for the blackout with reference to the northeastern power grid before the blackout; how the blackout began in Ohio; the cascade stage of the blackout; the August 14 blackout compared with previous major North American outages; performance of nuclear power plants affected by the blackout; and, physical and cyber security aspects of the blackout. The report indicates that the loss of FirstEnergy's overloaded Sammis-Star line triggered the cascade. Its 345-kV line into northern Ohio from eastern Ohio began tripping out because the lines were in contact with overgrown trees. The loss of the line created major and unsustainable burdens on lines in adjacent areas. The cascade spread rapidly as lines and generating units automatically took themselves out of service to avoid physical damage. The blackout had many contributing factors in common with earlier outages including: inadequate tree trimming, failure to identify emergency conditions, inadequate operator training, and inadequate regional-scale visibility over the power system. refs., tabs., figs.

Critical points and transitions in an electric power transmission model for cascading failure blackouts

Abstract: From the analysis of a 15-year time series of North American electric power transmission system blackouts, we have found that the frequency distribution of the blackout sizes does not decrease exponentially with the size of the blackout, but rather has a power law tail. The existence of a power tail suggests that the North American power system has been operated near a critical point. To see if this is possible, here we explore the critical points of a simple blackout model that incorporates circuit equations and a process through which outages of lines may happen. In spite of the simplifications, this is a complex problem. Understanding the different transition points and the characteristic properties of the distribution function of the blackouts near these points offers a first step in devising a dynamical model for the power transmission systems.