I am very surprised at the lack of response to Taz's excellent question on the 2nd.

Which leads me to post again, with slight variation and I'm hoping to get some real facts. Also, please let me know if this has already been answered in a previous thread.

***************

What would cause an EU to island?

What makes it unstable for an EU to stay on the Grid?

If a hydroelectric plant (AEP) located on a lake in VA that currently supplies power to Ohio region, islands, then who would they be able to supply power to, if any? The folks who live on the lake, who never had access to AEP power to begin with?

Thank you very much for your consideration.

-- Anonymous, September 09, 1999

Answers

For Dina & Taz: "Islanding" can take many forms. Most EU's, that operate control areas (and ISO's also) have contractually agreed to remain interconnected with others, unless certain previously established conditions occur, such as FREQUENCY decay (or drop) to a certain point (example 58.4 hz)due to a massive loss of generation ANYWHERE IN THE in their INTERCONNECTED AC System. This is normally accomplished with relays at points of interconnection that can accomplish their task(s) in less than a second and "island" your control area. Basically this means everyone has agreed, in general, to stay interconnected...up to a point (electrically helps each other)...and then purposely "island" with the hope of EVERYONE not going down (If your Control Area..or Area winds up separated with insufficient generation to keep the frequency above a ceratin point, you may be in the black). This has actually occurred on different ocasions throughout the U.S. The various companies and control areas then have to start emergency generators, increase on-line generation, etc., and after isolating the problem, interconnect with each other again. Load may, or may not, have been picked up during this involved process.

There are some cases where the simple loss of a few transmission lines can result in an island (sometimes on purpose, such as a remedial action scheme that trips other lines, in less than a second, when certain lines or lost). Other cases can be the unplanned loss of a few lines that can bust up quite a few areas or states (some in the black...some not). You might recall the San Francisco peninsula outage started with the unplanned separation of the peninsula with the rest of the system.

Although "deregulation" and "market forces" have made the electrical world more complicated (and unreliable IMHO), operators of control areas CAN manually separate from other interconnected companies given certain criteria or conditions where, paramount, is the necessity to protect one's own customers and the reliability of the interconnected system. They can also drop load (cities and entire areas) for the same reasons. This is not done lightly but, nevertheless, can be required under certain conditions. THIS HAS ALSO OCCURRED AT VARIOUS TIMES throughout the U.S.

It may not be as easy, or simple, as the "Y2k Officer" of a local power company told Taz (probably a computer person..not an electrical type). Although I described a previous obligation to do just this, it's a rare scenario that would "protect" your customers (You have on-line internal generation, you're NOT importing a huge amount, you're limited in time and options....you have a lot of Lawyers, etc.) There are normally other options available.

Taz, you asked if independent power companies across the country could purposely island. Yes, they could, but as I mentioned before, they have already agreed to NOT island and would have to reach agreements to do otherwise (probably a mere 3 to 4 years in court)

They CAN, and probably will, minimize power flows and reliances from sources further away, and other companies, as much as possible. This is one suggestion in the NERC y2k involvement ( If you have no local or internal generation you're at the mercy of others).

There's more in this area, but I have to quit before it gets way over-wordy. And don't feel bad Taz, 99% of the population knows VERY LITTLE about electricity and interconnected power systems (Some of them even work for power companies).

Quenton Hendricks Retired, after 28 years in Electrical Industry

-- Anonymous, September 09, 1999

Dina and Taz,

Quentin has already described some of the reasons for possible islanding, and at this time I am preparing a seminar for maintenance operators on "Control issues and methods while Islanded, and with loss of Communications".

One of the reasons for running this seminar is in preparation for Y2K contingencies, but the main reason is in response to a possible emergency situation that we faced last summer. New Zealand is a long narrow country split into two islands, and down in the lower part of the south island 3 of the grids high tension power lines travel through a river gorge (2 on one side of the river, and 1 on the other side). Last summer a fire broke out in that gorge and threatend to damage a tower carrying 2 circuits, but we were not worried as there was sufficient generation to continue if if we had lost both. However after the fire was extinquished, and the area inspected, we discovered that in fact ALL circuits had been in danger, and even more importantly, the fire had raged to within a few yards of a telecomunications repeater site. A site which carried all data and communications traffic to the lower part of the South Island. We came very close to having part of our country islanded, and with no communications available to anyone in the islanded area. Hence the need for the seminar on islanding.

As for your other question on the supply of power within an islanded area, I will ask for assistance from someone who may have better knowledge of the area concerned, and of contigent responses in USA.

In New Zealand, in any emergency situation, the priorities are Human health and safety first, Plant secrity second, grid security third, commercial considerations last. As the supply of electricity with the general area is a human health and safety issue, then we would supply first, and work out the details later.

Malcolm

-- Anonymous, September 09, 1999

Quenton,

While I cannot know for sure, I suspect that Tazz mention of a local Y2k officer could have referenced an e-mail I shared with her regarding a question she had on utility islanding. Only she can say for sure but I am aware that Taz is a customer of a local cooperative utility that does not maintain generation facilities and purchases their power elsewhere. Hence, her rightful concern for electrical isolation. I regret that I have not been back to this forum frequently enough to have caught her previous thread in order to clarify my position on this issue. Y2k officers need time off too. (LOL) I hope to provide that clarification below.

I am also aware of and am personally familiar with many of the operations personnel in her utility and hold them and their company in high regard. My company serves one of their local distribution substations providing wholesale energy under contract. We also serve a small adjacent distribution municipal under contract as well but our interconnect with them is also at the distribution level. My company operates its own control area and maintains three transmission interconnect points. We own and operate generation, transmission and distribution facilities within the FRCC region and hold numerous interchange contracts with companies across the United States including Power Marketers. We are a net seller of energy that is to say we typically sell more energy than we purchase. We participate fully in all reserve calls by the state security coordinator and fully contribute to regional reserve requirements and obligations.

While I am particularly adept at using and operating computer systems, I also have considerable experience in mainframe systems and server based networks and have even written code in a few different languages. I even have some experience in the old punch card systems but, thank god, those days are gone. Clearly, the majority of these systems are EMS, AGC and SCADA systems but they are rather complex real-time operating systems. Regardless,I am not a computer person.

Alas, my real love and functional responsibilities has been in electric system control area operations including generation, transmission and distribution for the last 32 years. I have served as my utilities representative to the FRCCs regional Operating Committee and the Operational Reliability Subcommittee as well. Living and working in Florida has afforded me a wide range of operational experience in terms of emergency management and control area restoration. Our area of Florida is second only to the Tampa, Orlando and Canaveral corridor for the highest incidence of thunderstorms annually anywhere in the US and I can assure you we get our fair share of severe weather. Nothing teaches better than experience. I am currently the Y2k Coordinator for my utility and answer directly to our Y2k Task Force chairman, an executive officer. Reporting to the Task Force are over 100 employees including engineers, technicians, operators, supervisors and managers throughout the various service areas including our electric, gas, water wastewater and telecommunication systems.

Our utility reported our readiness to our regional council and NERC as of June 30, 1999 as well as to the Florida Public Service Commission. This was done only after we fully tested our mission critical systems as compliant. We had chosen to use the 4 digit method of remediation and used the IEEE definition of Y2k compliant as our internal standard. We had and have no exceptions outstanding. We have completed our contingency planning and continue to update that plan as more is known and conditions become better defined. We are continuing to remediate and test our non-mission critical systems today. The single most significant problem we found in our mission critical systems was with a Baily Network 90 combustion control system for a smaller steam generator. Even though the unit is to be converted to a combined cycle system in the future, we chose to replace the combustion system before the rollover at a cost of approximately $32,000. We were very fortunate with our EMS System (AGC/SCADA) as we were in the process of replacing an old 1986 vintage system with a GE Harris XA21 EMS system. We received excellent cooperation from the vendor and the system was tested as compliant on the factory floor and, again, when it was installed with all its interfaces. Obviously, this is a very brief and cursory synopsis of our efforts and is not intended to infer a complete characterization of all tasks performed.

I found your comment regarding deregulation interesting and happen to agree and I feel that it will have a continuing negative influence on reliability. Frankly, I have found Ricks comments regarding the effects of deregulation much too benevolent, as mine are more visceral in nature and, most probably, not appropriate or of interest to this forum. Perhaps it is a subject for a whole new forum Deregulation and the Utility Industry (DUI) hows that for an acronym?

Now, back to Taz. In her previous thread, Taz asked:

He says they are ready. But also says, if he sees where HIS CUSTOMERS are not going to get power he will island in a hot second. Can he do that? I mean can he ethically and legally do that?

As I stated above, yes, we are ready. Our systems have been tested as compliant, our contingency plans are in place, we have participated in all NERC exercises to date and we have stockpiled fuel reserves. We feel we are ready for the rollover.

As for the second part, her interpretation of my position was not what I had intended to convey at all and I owe her an apology which I intend to make privately. I believe my response to her was something to the effect that . in the event my utilitys facilities, employees or customers were at imminent risk, I would drop from the grid like a hot rock. Perhaps this was overstating the obvious but it was not my intent to say that simply because my customers are not going to get power I would island in a hot second. It is and always has been my view that interconnected operations of electric utilities is the single most effective and prudent method for control areas to maintain the highest degree of individual system security and reliability.

Our internal generation capacity exceeds our highest peak demand by approximately 19 to 20%% and as I stated earlier, we are a net exporter of energy. By risk, my intent was to convey that an imminent threat of damage to our facilities due to uncontrolled transmission transients that could result in the loss of our ability to reliably serve our customers was considered just cause to initiate separation. Now, obviously, given the speed with which protective relaying acts, in all probability, we would never have the chance to initiate separation manually.

You are quite correct Quenton, we would not do this lightly and not without properly notifying our Security Coordinator first. You are also very accurate in stating that these instances are quite rare. I have seen only one in my career. However, even with only 28 years in the industry (just kidding), you must be aware that protective relaying just may make that decision for us. I have seen many of these incidents during the early eighties. However, today, even these events have become very rare as well.

Best Regards,

-- Anonymous, September 10, 1999