What has to happen to cause a grid go down? Can one noncompliant power plant take down an entire grid? How about ten? Or twenty?

How important is the SCADA (computer system that helps manage the grid) system? Can the grid work with out it?

-- Anonymous, August 29, 1998

Answers

I'll try a short answer to each of the questions.

1) For lack of a better phrase, "chaos theory" and "cascade effect" more or less rule the day in terms of what can cause a regional transmission network to crash. There's been many crashes, and all are evaluated and lessons learned implemented. Refer to an earlier discussion on this discussion forum regarding the 1996 western U.S. power system failure for an example.

2) See 1), above. The short answer - in the right combination of sequential and cascading events, the answer would be yes. However, all things being equal and making the improbable assumption that everything else in the regional system is Y2k ready, a single plant failure would probably not cause a system wide crash. Power plants trip offline due to mechanical and/or electrical failures every day of the week, and no one ever notices.

3)and 4) This would start to get problematic (crashes in quantity). Refer to 1) and 2).

5) Dick Mills posted a response to just this question elsewhere on this discussion forum. Click on "T&D", and you should be able to find it. While SCADA is certainly important, Dick's assertation is that regional and local distribution can work without SCADA. I am less sanguine - simply because the manpower isn't there to do it and some of the earlier controls that would make such manual operation possible have been dismantled during the evolution of current technology.

-- Anonymous, August 31, 1998