I just read this article about a potential power surge on 1/1/2000. Any expert opinions out there? At the PUC meeting I attended, the NERC representative said they would have all of their generators up and running, there was even discussion about bringing some older generating stations out of retirement just in case. How is the grid able to handle big power surges? (Great big screw in fuses...one really big copper penny...? :) Could there be a risk of too much power production. thanks Jeff

Here's the article:

Alberta's Y2K team fears electrical surge

Drop in demand could trigger outage, say power grid experts

Jim Cunningham, Calgary Herald

The province's top experts on the so-called millennium bug are worried a sudden, unexpected drop in demand for power could be the shock awaiting Albertans on Jan. 1, 2000.

....The possibility such a drop could trigger a major power outage on that date will be on the table in Edmonton this week, when Alberta's senior planners work on Y2K issues.

It will be the first meeting of the group charged with making sure none of the doomsday predictions for that date occur here.

While such a power outage is considered unlikely, it remains a worry, said Dave Noble of Alberta Disaster Services.

"It's a question of getting the best possible idea of what the risk might be," said Noble, who will chair the meeting of utility company representatives, government officials and municipal representatives from Calgary and across the province.

"There are a lot of horror stories around, too many in my view," he said.

The main goal of the session will be to identify such problems, discuss solutions and give those attending information on how to protect their own systems when the new century arrives.

Noble said he was "cautiously optimistic" on preparations in Alberta for Y2K, which is based on the possibility of computers and computer-like systems shutting down when their date monitors move from the last two digits of next year, 1999, to 00.

But getting through the date switch without a disaster depends on the power, water, natural gas and phone systems continuing to work normally.

So a main focus of the meeting will be about potential problems like the power supply question.

"It's like a power surge," Linda Thomas of TransAlta, the province's biggest power generator, said of the scenario, which her company and others have been preparing for.

As long as demand for electricity matches the supply, the system works as it should.

But if demand suddenly drops, all bets are off, Thomas confirmed.

All it would take would be for some major industrial users of electricity, here or elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest power grid, to shut down due to Y2K problems.

The resulting drop in demand for electricity could then prompt other users to shut off their lights as well.

If enough people stop using their normal complement of electricity, the grid could be affected, Thomas confirmed.

"The big unknown is public reaction," said Greg Ptashny, the year 2000 co-ordinator for Enmax, the city's power distribution utility.

If people react irrationally or in an unexpected way on Y2K Eve, no one knows what could happen, he said.

"There are no guarantees in this business, not for Y2K, not for anything," Ptashny said.

One possible solution is for the Alberta Power Pool, which manages the electricity grid in the province, is to cut the system loose from the rest of the continental power grid quickly in the event of a drop in demand elsewhere.

The utilities here are working on plans to do that, Thomas said.

But if the problem arose within Alberta, generators would have to be taken off line equally quickly or power would have to be laid off to to the rest of the grid to keep things in balance.

-- Anonymous, December 14, 1998

Answers

Jeff, the recent San Francisco power outage engendered several articles about power surges and what safety systems are in place to keep them from spreading. It would appear that your humorous "great big.. fuses" isn't all that farfetched, the point being to shut systems down quickly before much damage takes place. However, how much is shut down apparently also depends on the size of the surge. (See the last paragraph below) Here's a compilation of statements from different articles on the S.F. outage which apply to the power surges:

The power system detected a switching surge and was tripped off as a safety measure, PG&E said, and the system had to be restored gradually, circuit-by-circuit.

The outage happened when a transmission substation in San Mateo County experienced a drop in power for unknown reasons, said John Tremayne, a Pacific Gas & Electric spokesman for the Central Valley. The substation problem caused two gas-powered electrical generation facilities to drop offline.

The power surge was experienced as far north as Napa and across the bay in Hayward, dimming lights, making TVs goes fuzzy and knocking computers off line. But power in most of those areas was restored within the hour, callers told KGO Radio.

The haywire power surge entered the lines about 8 a.m. after a simple human error by a crew at Pacific Gas & Electric's San Mateo substation south of San Francisco. Like a runaway train, the altered voltage surge rumbled north through the humming electrical lines toward one of America's busiest cities, prepared to wreak its damage at every substation in its path--ruining equipment and potentially causing long-term disruption in electrical service.

A backup system kicked into place to automatically shut down 25 substations in the path of the abnormal surge. The electronic safety net temporarily cut power to nearly 1 million people Tuesday, causing havoc throughout the Bay Area, but it averted longer-term problems and perhaps stopped the troubles from spreading farther into Northern California. Scott Blakey, a PG & E spokesman, said: "The substations shut themselves down--all within the blink of an eye. Or two blinks." At a news conference Tuesday, Gordon Smith, president and chief executive officer of Pacific Gas & Electric, said the company's safeguards effectively averted a disaster. "It triggered a protective system that worked as it should have, that isolated the San Francisco Peninsula from the rest of Northern California." The backup system--a series of sensors that shuts down substations at the first hint of a damaging power surge--is among several methods employed by electric companies nationwide to minimize equipment damage and stop power problems from spreading after substation accidents. A similar sensor system was used in 1996 when two power outages at major substations in Arizona and Oregon triggered a massive chain reaction of blackouts that sped through power companies serving cities across the West. In similar fashion, the sensors shut down a series of substations, but a much wider area was affected because the breakdown occurred at much larger substations.

-- Anonymous, December 14, 1998

Our Control Area is a net importer of energy. As such, we are VERY interested in the status of our major suppliers. We have met face to face with two of three so far. Loss of load is one of the contingencies that they are planning for. A sudden loss of load causes the frequency to go up and if not corrected will cause the generation to trip on overspeed. So loss of load can have a similar impact as loss of generation. Our neighbors are meeting with their large industrial customers to determine their operating plans for the rollover weekend.

Jim

-- Anonymous, December 14, 1998