Improvements make repeat of last year's Ohio blackout unlikely, regulators say
By Jim Mackinnon, Akron Beacon Journal, Ohio -- July 16
Chain saws have toppled overgrown trees under thousands of miles of electric transmission lines. Computerized monitoring systems are upgraded. People who operate utility control rooms are better trained.
With memories fading of flashlights, flickering candles, melted ice cream, a
lack of traffic lights, TV or air conditioning, and a Cleveland water system
that stopped working, Congress needs to enact stalled energy legislation now,
said Ohio Gov. Bob Taft and others. The federal government needs to put into law
mandatory electric reliability standards that include stiff penalties for
noncompliance, they said.
"In my view, it's inexcusable" that Congress has not acted, Taft
said. A comprehensive energy bill has been held up for more than a year.
"It's been stalled because of other issues, peripheral issues," Taft
said.
A lot of work has been done and continues to be done to make the grid more
reliable. Another large blackout is less likely, Taft said. Electricity use
peaks in the heat of July and August as air conditioners in homes and businesses
kick in and work harder, putting a large strain on the grid.
"The chances of a blackout are far less. Everybody is focused on
it," Taft said. "The oversight is still improving."
The cascading blackout that spread across eight states and parts of Canada on
the afternoon of Aug. 14 got its start in FirstEnergy Corp.'s system, when three
power lines overheated and sagged into trees in Northern Ohio.
Because of confusion at FirstEnergy and among other overseers of the grid,
coupled with an inadequate and sometimes nonfunctioning grid-monitoring system,
the blackout spread in the blink of an eye before it could be isolated and
contained.
As a result, tens of millions of people were left without electricity, and
some estimates put losses from the blackout at $6 billion. A subsequent
U.S.-Canada investigation concluded that FirstEnergy did not follow voluntary
industry standards in critical areas such as cutting down vegetation under power
lines, and that others also failed to meet standards.
"If 50 million (people without electricity) isn't a wake-up call, I
don't know what is," said Pat Wood, chairman of the Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission. He chaired Thursday's meeting, which was sponsored by
FERC and held at the Renaissance Cleveland Hotel.
Mandatory reliability standards need to be locked into law, Wood said.
Industry peer pressure works to make sure that utilities follow rules and
guidelines, but that pressure cannot be sustained over years, he said.
"That's why it has to be institutionalized," Wood said. The
utilities and organizations that administer the grid have been doing a decent
job of cutting down trees, improving training and upgrading their tools, he
said.
Overgrown trees were a major factor in the Aug. 14 blackout and in seven
previous major outages, a draft federal report released at the meeting showed.
The FERC report said utilities across the nation have done extensive tree
cutting and other vegetation management under high-voltage lines since the
blackout. But the report, which will be sent to Congress, also said there was
little uniformity in how utilities managed vegetation. In some cases, utilities
said they were hindered by federal and state agencies from cutting down trees or
applying herbicides because of environmental and other concerns.
Since the blackout, FirstEnergy has improved training for its transmission
operators, conducted drills and developed new emergency response protocols, said
Tom Burgess, the utility's director of energy delivery structuring. A new
computer monitoring system, ordered before the Aug. 14 blackout, has been
installed, he said.
FirstEnergy has also conducted foot patrols and aerial flyovers of its 15,000
miles of transmission lines, spokesman Ralph DiNicola said.
"We're feeling pretty good," said Chuck Jones, senior vice
president for energy delivery at FirstEnergy.
More investments must be made throughout the nation's massive, but
increasingly congested, transmission system, Burgess said. The deregulation of
electricity markets is placing greater strains on the grid, which was initially
designed to serve local markets but is now being used to send power great
distances, he and others said.
"Without investment, the grid will not be able to keep up with the
demands placed upon it," Burgess said. "The more the grid is used in
ways for which it was not intended, the greater risk we run of failures."
A representative from the Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator,
which oversees and manages part of the grid in FirstEnergy's territory, said his
organization has made important improvements since the blackout. For one thing,
the Midwest ISO and neighboring regional transmission organizations are doing a
better job of communicating among themselves to better manage electricity loads
across the grid, said Clair Moeller, vice president of the Midwest ISO.
"The most important thing we did to prepare for this summer,
unfortunately, was last summer," Moeller said. "It clarified our
thinking."
-----
To see more of the Akron Beacon Journal, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go
to http://www.ohio.com .
(c) 2004, Akron Beacon Journal, Ohio. Distributed by Knight
Ridder/Tribune Business News. For information on republishing this content,
contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213)
237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com. FE,