Domino effect of power outages?

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Electric Utilities and Y2K : One Thread

We have heard that with regards to banks, if x% fail (more or less simultaneously), there is a chance that they will drag down with them others even though the remainder might have addressed their internal problems (because of the interconnectivity of the banking system).

I don't know anything about the interconnectivity of our nation's powergrid. Is there the potential for the same sort of domino effect where if x% of power suppliers fail (again, more or less simultaneously) the remainder overload attempting to pick up the slack and are themselves dragged down? If the potential for this scenario exists, does anyone know what the critical x percentage might be? 20%? 10%? 5%? ect.

-- Anonymous, January 30, 1998

Answers

Peter,

I don't think anyone could reliably predict such a scenario and place a percentage on it. Here's an interesting example of how a little event, and the subsequent cascade, brought down 2 million customers over several states (and part of Canada) in 35 seconds:

From Western Systems Coordinating Council:

PRESS RELEASE WSCC TECHNICAL EXPERTS DISCOVER CAUSE OF WESTERN U.S. ELECTRICAL OUTAGE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July 21, 1996

SALT LAKE CITY -- At their July 19 meeting, the Western Systems Coordinating Council investigation team analyzed data pertaining to the July 2 power outage and determined the outage was triggered when a flashover occurred between a 345,000-volt transmission line and a tree that had grown too close to the line. This line spans the 234 miles between the Jim Bridger generating plant near Rock Springs, Wyoming, and the Kinport substation in southeastern Idaho. If this had been the only incident, customer outages would not have occurred.

The WSCC investigation revealed the incident resulted from a combination of unusual operating conditions characterized by:

These unusual conditions, coupled with the simultaneous loss of a parallel 345,000-volt line caused by a bad protective device, contributed to the severity of the outage.

The chain of events leading to scattered customer (My note: 2 million is scattered??) interruptions over a wide geographic area took less than 35 seconds to occur.

**********

Now, consider that this event involved multiple electric companies in two countries. All were (and are) interconnected at various points of electric system integration.

If you'd like more background, you might want to check out the www.doe.eia.gov website, which is a great reference for learning about the nation's electric system.

-- Anonymous, January 30, 1998


I was looking for information on Infrastructure issues re Y2K and came across an article that compared the results of Y2K failure to what might occur during an InfoWar attack and decided to do some research on it. Came across the following article and would like feedback.

"The Power Grids

Power grids, like telephone networks, are prone to failure, both accidental and intentional. Stephen Bowman writes:

The United States power system is divided into four electrical grids supplying Texas, the eastern states, the midwestern states and the northwestern states. They are all interconnected in Nebraska. A unique aspect of the electrical grids, as with communication grids, is that most built-in computerized security is designed to anticipate no more than two disruptions concurrently. In other words, if a primary line went down, the grid would ideally shut off power to a specific section while it rerouted electricity around that problem area. If it ran into two such problems however, the grid is designed to shut down altogether.(63)

The national security implications of major power failures are obvious. Blacking out several large cities at once would result not only in large economic losses, but would likely spawn civil unrest and chaos. One need only think of the damage inflicted by the Los Angeles riots in 1992. For social reasons, outside the realm of this paper, our cities have become highly unstable and prone to disruption. Amory B. and L. Hunter Lovins note that "However caused, a massive power-grid failure would be slow and difficult to repair, would gravely endanger national security and would leave lasting economic and political scars."(64)"

http://www.terrorism.com/documents/devostthesis.html

-- Anonymous, February 25, 1998


I'm not an expert by any definition. Furthermore my information (reliability still in question) applies to the midwest. It goes something like this.

It is not a percentage that would trigger a domino effect, it is a fixed number, 5. If the grid detects five faults from stations on the grid, it goes down. This is apparently legacy logic. If five faults occur than there must be a catastropy somewhere on the grid, floods, major ice storm, something, so everything starts shutting down. So if any five power utilities fail, regardless of the status of all the others, the lights go out.

If this is true, we are in very real danger from the smaller companies that are unable/unwilling to become compliant. Even if the major providers make it, they are at the mercy of other stations for which they have no controll.

-- Anonymous, May 13, 1998


Moderation questions? read the FAQ