15-12-2012, 06:08 PM
Joint U.S.-Canada Power System Outage Investigation
1Joint U.S.-Canada.ppt (Size: 4.15 MB / Downloads: 58)
U.S.-Canada Interim Report
Released November 19, 2003
Result of an exhaustive bi-national investigation
Working groups on electric system, nuclear plant performance and security
Hundreds of professionals on investigation teams performed extensive analysis
Interim report produced by the teams and accepted by the bi-national Task Force
Conclusions of the Interim Report
What caused the blackout
Inadequate situational awareness by FirstEnergy
Inadequate tree-trimming by FirstEnergy
Inadequate diagnostic support by reliability coordinators serving the Midwest
Explanation of the cascade and major events
Nuclear plants performed well
No malicious cyber attack caused blackout
What caused the blackout (1)
FirstEnergy lost its system condition alarm system around 2:14pm, so its operators couldn’t tell later on that system conditions were degrading.
FE lost many capabilities of its Energy Management System from the problems that caused its alarm failure – but operators didn’t realize it had failed
After 3:05pm, FE lost three 345 kV lines due to contacts with overgrown trees, but didn’t know the lines had gone out of service.
How do we know this?
The Task Force investigation team has over two hundred experts from the US and Canada government agencies, national laboratories, academics, industry, and consultants
Extensive interviews, data collection, field visits, computer modeling, and fact-checking of all leads and issues
Logical, systematic analysis of all possibilities and hypotheses to verify root causes and eliminate false explanations