Did You Know

Final Blackout Report Spells Out 46 Recommendations to Prevent Future Occurrences

The U.S. - Canada Power System Outage Task Force’s final report on the Aug. 14, 2003, Midwest blackout and the widespread outages that extended to Canada and the Northeast contains 46 recommendations that call for actions from many parties to prevent future widespread occurrences. They are grouped into four categories:
• Institutional Issues Related to Reliability (14 recommendations);
• Support and Strengthen Actions That Have Been Taken By the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) (16);
• Physical and Cyber Security of North American Bulk Power Systems (14); and,
• Canadian Nuclear Power Sector (2).

The report states that its “single most important” recommendation is for Congress to enact the reliability provisions in the pending energy bills. In the absence of reliability legislation, the report urges the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) — to the “maximum extent permitted” under its statutory authority — to act to enhance reliability by making compliance with reliability standards enforceable.

The final report details the lessons learned and recommends actions necessary to prevent future catastrophes. It also reaffirms the operational implications drawn in the November 2003 interim report from the root causes of the blackout:
• inadequate situational awareness at FirstEnergy;
• inadequate management of tree growth in transmission rights-of-way by FirstEnergy; and,
• failure of the interconnected grid’s reliability organizations to provide effective real-time diagnostic support.

The final report added a fourth contributing factor to the blackout’s initiation, specifically regarding the mismanagement of reactive power, which is necessary to maintain voltage levels across the bulk power transmission system. The report concludes that FirstEnergy and the East Central Area Region’s Regional Reliability Council (RRC) failed to assess and understand the inadequacies of FirstEnergy’s system, particularly with respect to voltage stability, and that FirstEnergy did not operate its system with appropriate voltage criteria. However, the final report reaffirmed that assertions made regarding the lack of reactive power from independent power producers were “misplaced.”

The final report engages in a comprehensive, far-reaching overview of the organizations and entities with a role in grid management, and emphasizes that NERC’s and the RRC’s responsibilities, roles, activities and operating policies should be examined and clarified. Also, the report states that regional transmission organizations (RTOs) should have full capability and authority to fulfill their responsibilities as Reliability Coordinators.

One conclusion that can be drawn from the report is the need to manage day-to-day reliability operations and system security on a regional basis — not just through separate utility-based control areas. The Electric Power Supply Association (EPSA) believes that the best-equipped entity to provide such reliability management is the independent RTO, because such organizations are in the best position to assess contingencies and oversee and react to changing system conditions — in short, “to keep the lights on.”

The following are key recommendations directly affecting RTOs and RTO operations:
• #1—Make reliability standards mandatory and enforceable;
• #3—Strengthen the institutional framework for reliability management in North America;
• #6—FERC should not approve the operation of new RTOs or independent system operators until they have met minimum functional requirements [for reliability coordinators];
• #9—Integrate a “reliability impact” consideration into regulatory decision-making;
• #12—Commission an independent study of the relationships among industry restructuring, competition and reliability.

In regard to #3, the report contains a substantive discussion on strengthening the institutional framework for reliability management in North America. Specifically, the report states that FERC, the Department of Energy (DOE) and appropriate Canadian authorities “should work with the states, NERC and the industry, to evaluate and develop appropriate modifications to the existing institutional framework for reliability management.” To accomplish this, the report urges the affected government agencies to:
• commission an independent assessment on how best to structure an international reliability organization for the long term;
• develop metrics for gauging the adequacy of NERC’s performance;
• examine and clarify the future role of the regional councils;
• examine NERC’s Functional Model and the minimum requirements necessary to perform critical functions;
• suspend designation of any new control area until the minimum requirements have been established; and,
• determine ways to enhance reliability operations through simplified organizational boundaries and resolution of seams issues.

Recommendation #12 calls for a study on competition and reliability. It states that DOE and Natural Resources Canada should commission an independent study of the relationships among industry restructuring, competition in power markets, and grid reliability, and how those relationships should be managed to best serve the public interest (emphasis added).

A copy of the final report, issued on April 5, 2004, is available at: https://reports.energy.gov/BlackoutFinal-Web.pdf. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Mark Bennett at 202-349-0152, or mbennett@epsa.org.