ELECTRICAL POWER OUTAGE IN CANADA AND THE US

This report presents and analysis and an assessment of the August 2003 electrical power outage in Canada and the United States. The report also includes recommendations relevant to the handling of future incidents of this type. The structure of this report is as follows: (a) event summary; (b) problem confronting emergency services; (c) effects on emergency services (debriefing; preparations; responses; and lessons learned); (d) STEEP assessment; and (e)recommendations.

The U.S./Canada Power Outage Task Force (2003) established an event sequence that defined the chronological initiation and progress of events that led to the electrical power outage that affected parts of the northeastern United States, parts of the United States Midwest, and parts of Eastern Canada on 14 August 2003. The sequence of events identified by the Task Force was as follows (U.S./Canada Power Outage Task Force, 2003):

12:05:44-to-13:31:34: Three generator trips [1757 MW] - two in Northeastern Ohio and one in Eastern Michigan

14:02:00: Transmission line disconnect [345 KV] Southwestern Ohio

15:05:41-to-15:45:33: Four transmission line disconnects [1380 KV] Northeasters and Northern Ohio

16:06:03-to-16:09:06: Three transmission line disconnects [1035 KV] Northeastern and Northern Ohio

16:09:23-to-16:10:27: Two generator trips [700 MW] Central Michigan

. . .
ts published on the electrical power outage of August 2003 in part of Canada and the United States. The initial generator shutdowns caused the electric power flow pattern to change over the transmission system. Transmission line disconnects reduced the effectiveness of the transmission path from eastern Ohio into the northern Ohio area. Electricity that had been flowing over these lines immediately began flowing over other transmission lines that connect northern Ohio to the Eastern Interconnection grid. The revised power flow pattern began to overload the new lines. As voltage was dropping, demand of about 600 MW disconnected in the northern Ohio area from industrial customers and distribution-level customers who were disconnected automatically from the transmission system (U.S./Canada Power Outage Task Force, 2003). The transmission line disconnects left only three paths for power to flow into northern Ohio (i.e., (a) from northeastern Ohio and Pennsylvania around the southern shore of Lake Erie; (b) from parts southern Ohio; and (c) from eastern Michigan). Northeastern Ohio was weakened as a source of electrical power to eastern Michigan, making the Detroit area more reliant on the west-east Michigan lines, as well as th
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Approximate Word count = 2623
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)

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