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Taskforce points the finger over blackout { November 19 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)    http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1069132004325 http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1069132004325 Taskforce points the finger over blackout By Demetri Sevastopulo in Washington Published: November 19 2003 21:16 | Last Updated: November 20 2003 0:45 A US-Canada taskforce on Wednesday said FirstEnergy, an Ohio electric utility, was primarily responsible for the massive blackout that left millions of North Americans without power in August. The taskforce on Wednesday released a report which said the blackout could have been avoided if FirstEnergy had observed reliability standards established by the North America Electric Reliability Council (Nerc). "This blackout was largely preventable," said Spencer Abraham, US energy secretary. "However, once the problem grew to a certain magnitude, nothing could have been done to prevent it from cascading out of control." The report said the blackout was triggered when three of FirstEnergy's transmission lines short-circuited after coming into contact with trees. FirstEnergy's engineers did not take action that would have prevented the problem cascading because the company's alarm system failed. "When something does go wrong, and very important procedures aren't followed and critical transmission monitoring and control equipment fails, the likelihood of major problems intensifies," said Mr Abraham. "That's what . . . happened on August 14." The Midwest Independent System Operator (Miso), which co-ordinates power transmission in the region, was also partly responsible for the problem spreading to other regions because of problems with its system analysis tools, the report said. "Even with the First- Energy tree-caused outages the system could have minimised the effects if there had been better co-ordination, communications and system analysis capabilities," said Roger Gale, partner at GF Energy, a consultancy. The taskforce found that FirstEnergy had not observed four reliability standards while Miso had failed to observe two standards. "The failures helped create a problem of such magnitude as to be insurmountable," Mr Abraham said. The Senate is expected to vote tomorrow on energy legislation that includes mandatory electricity reliability standards. But the bill prevents the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission from implementing for several years mandatory regional transmission organisations that some experts argue are needed to improve reliability. Concerns about terrorist attacks abounded when the blackout hit New York on August 14, but the report found no evidence of any terrorist activity. It also concluded that nuclear plants were shut down safely when the power failures occurred. The US-Canada taskforce is now expected to hold public forums to gather input before coming out with recommendations to improve the reliability of the electric grid. In an interview with the Financial Times last week, Mr Abraham said that the energy legislation, which must be passed by the Senate, would create incentives for companies to improve the transmission system and reduce the possibility of blackouts.

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