Power Engineering - Utilities work to restore power in USA and Canada

15 Aug. 2003 - Electric utilities across the northeastern USA and eastern Canada are working to restore power to millions of customers following a power outage on Thursday afternoon. The blackout, which started just after 4pm EDT, is thought to have affected up to 50m people across the Great Lakes area.

The exact cause of the power failure has not yet been identified and it may be several days before some major power plants are returned to full service. The areas most affected included Michigan, Ohio, New York City, Ontario, Quebec, northern New Jersey, Massachusetts and Connecticut.

The cascading power failure affected an area of 10 100 km2 (3900 square miles) and is thought to be the largest power failure in US history. It affected a number of key services in the area, including traffic lights, airports and public transport systems. Many New Yorkers were left stranded in the city overnight, unable to get home.

According to the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC), a total of 61 800 MW of load was lost in just three minutes across the six main systems in the region: PJM Interconnection (4000 MW); Midwest ISO (18 500 MW), Hydro Quebec (100 MW); Ontario IMO (21 000 MW); ISO New England (2500 MW); and New York ISO (24 400 MW) Approximately one-third of this had been restored by 11 pm EDT,

New York City officials are aiming to have power restored by the morning rush hour, while Connecticut's Office of Emergency Management said that power in the state would be restored by noon EDT on Friday. Detroit Edison's 2.1m customers have been warned that power may not be fully restored to them until Sunday.

According to reports, Canadian officials are maintaining that the initial fault occurred in the US system, while utilities in the US have said that it occurred in Canada. The fault affected 21 power plants, including ten nuclear power plants, which shut down between 4:10pm and 4:13pm EDT.

The New York ISO has said that the outage was caused by a fault occurring west of the Ontario Power system, resulting in a sudden loss of a major portion of generation in parts of Ontario, Michigan and Ohio. It also said in a statement that the disturbance did not occur in New York State. The office of Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien said on Thursday night that a fire at a power plant near Niagara Falls, New York appeared to be the cause of the blackout.

It may take several days to return the affected nuclear to service, according to NERC. Generation from the fossil-fired plants was expected to be restored within hours.

Add RSS Feed