Month: June 2019

Why Situational Awareness of the Grid Is Crucial for Electricity Resilience

Why Situational Awareness of the Grid Is Crucial for Electricity Resilience

Why Situational Awareness of the Grid Is Crucial for Electricity Resiliency

06/03/19

“Why is monitoring the grid so crucial for electricity resilience?”

One of the most fundamental parts of building resilience is preventing cascading outages. If even a single transmission line snaps, then it could overwhelm other ones, eventually resulting in a large-scale power loss. One of the key tools to preventing this is having situational awareness of what is going on in the grid, so one can react fast enough to mishaps. This is Why Situational Awareness of the Grid Is Crucial for Electricity Resiliency.

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How a Downed Transmission Line Can Trigger a Cascading Power Failure

How a Downed Transmission Line Can Trigger a Cascading Power Failure

How a Downed Transmission Line Can Trigger a Cascading Power Failure

06/02/19

“How can a single failed transmission line cause a whole power grid to shutdown?”

The electricity grid is the backbone of modern human infrastructure. However, if a single transmission line becomes faulty and goes down, then power will need to be redistributed throughout the entire system accordingly. If no care is taken, then the extra surge of electricity can overwhelm other transmission lines and cause them to fail, repeating the process until a cascading power failure occurs such as in The Northeast Blackout of 2003. This is How a Downed Transmission Line Can Trigger a Cascading Power Failure.

The Northeast Blackout of 2003

The Northeast Blackout of 2003

The Northeast Blackout of 2003

06/01/19

“How did the worst blackout of the Northeastern United States unfold?”

On August 14th, 2003, a power line in Ohio under the dominion of the utility First Energy’s control struck a tree and faulted, causing power to redistribute throughout the rest of the network. The alarm system used by the company had a bug and did not not alert the authorities. This caused other lines to sag out and fault with trees, creating a cascading power failure by around 4:05 pm Eastern US time. This spread throughout the rest of the Northeastern grid, causing 50 million people in the U.S and Canada to lose power for up to two days. Not only did this result in 11 deaths and approximately 6 billion USD in damage. The Northeast Blackout of 2003 was one of the costliest to date and resulted in the U.S setting much stricter standards for reliability and maintenance of power lines.

Image credit cdn.newsday.com