Chairman’s Column
By
Siri Varadan
It definitely was not an act of terrorism,
it was not some secretive anti-terror operation (conducted by the CIA, FBI and DHS) that went
bad – it was the confluence of several complex factors that brewed the “perfect” storm. What started
out as a simple “tree” fault in the middle of nowhere in Ohio, coupled with a few equipment outages
(planned) and equipment failures (unplanned) led to a quickly cascading collapse of the power system.
I trust that you all are enjoying the summer…time
for the annual family vacation! For us power engineers, it marks the anniversary of the now (in)famous
Northeast Blackout – a blackout that left millions of people in the dark, clueless and confused.
As if you all don’t know already, our Spring banquet
was a great success. Our featured speakers Terry Winter (ex CEO of CAISO) and Bob Stuart
(Principal Consultant with Nexant Inc.) gave an excellent account of the Northeast Blackout.
An instant-by-instant root cause analysis conducted under the supervision of Bob
(who led the NERC team investigating the Blackout) presented the now obvious and famous three Ts. Trees. Tools. Training.
Squarely putting the blame on lack of training of
operators at the local utility, Bob went on to provide another grim fact. The state of tools is indeed poor.
It is difficult enough operating a complex power system, but when you have to do it blind, it is like shooting in
the dark! That’s exactly what the operators had to do. With no proper notification or communication, what started
as an innocuous fault grew into the pandemic blackout that we all witnessed.
The question is, “Are we safe on the West Coast?”
The answer is probably “yes”. We have already come dangerously close to operating at a level 1 emergency
and if the hot weather continues, there is the chance of an unintentional blackout or intentional rolling
blackouts. Hopefully, utilities in our part of the world have learned from the Northeast Blackout and will be
able to avoid making the same mistakes.
Encouraged by the solid response to the last banquet,
we have decided to have a second banquet – a
summer banquet – on a topic that complements the first banquet topic.
Two great speakers – Joe Desmond and Mary Ann Piette – will talk about demand response and how it can be used to
avoid blackouts. We are expecting that this timely topic will provide for an equally, if not more, interesting evening.
We have several other events planned for the Fall.
A few presentations and a one-day long tutorial are all in the pipeline. Please watch for announcements by e-mail.
I thank you for your patronage and look forward to your continued
support. This is, after all, your organization and your participation will only make it a grand success.
Take care and enjoy the Summer…
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