my take on the blackout

I recently participated in a discussion about some aspects of the U.S. power grid, and as in every recent discussion on the grid I've heard, the blackout of 2003 came up. Tthe main presenter--who really knew his stuff, by the way--had something interesting to say about it. The media really hyped the supposed antiquity and reliability of the electrical grid to the virtual exclusion of other issues. But this guy claimed the media overplayed this and grid reliability isn't the huge issue it's made out to be. (I should have known this, with the media's ongoing obsession with flair and scare tactics over real news.) He's probably right; if so then I've had the main cause of the blackout wrong all this time.

As his explanation goes, any piece of equipment, when properly maintained, will last a long, long time. The main issue exposed by the blackout wasn't the age and apparent unreliability of grid components but the cutting back of maintenance and upkeep of utility transmission systems. First Energy had scaled back many basic preventive maintenance operations, including tree trimming, in efforts to save money. And so, when the transmission line that started it all dipped slightly due to heavy loading, it wasn't doing anything too unusual until it came in contact with a tree. The resulting fault tripped a breaker and the domino effect was on. But the problem here wasn't so much the overloading as the presence of a branch so close to the cables. Lines are often loaded at or near capacity or allowed to heat up significantly, especially during peak hours, and no harm is done. Unless, of course, the clearance to allow for this sort of thing isn't maintained. This isn't saying the U.S. power grid doesn't need more care and even some overhauling, but it isn't on the verge of falling apart as some would have us believe.

After all, look at how many components worked just as they were supposed to. The breakers that kept tripping and taking lines out of the network did their job. The lines themselves did what they were supposed to, and even more in many of cases. In my region, fast relay operation on one key interconnect kept our grid operator's territory separate from the affected network and kept the power on for several mid-atlantic states. The vast majority of electrical equipment out there functioned as intended. In fact, the part that didn't work right was the new and advanced computer monitoring system First Energy thought they were using to keep an eye on grid conditions until they realized it was down. Go figure.

So let me lay this out as I understand it. It seems the real root cause here is a lack of attention to the grid by a particular utility and the resulting degradation of some carriers. The cause of that was a desire to save money, and the cause of that was a deregulated environment that encourages utilities to cut corners wherever possible instead of allocating resources for adequate maintenance. Our grid was fine as long as utilities could invest in their systems and keep them in good working order. There were the rare problems we heard about but nothing that wouldn't be expected from unpredictable and unavoidable failures. But in a competitive world who's going to waste money on small stuff when you can use it to gain an advantage over your competitors? So it appears we have a system that works well when given proper care but perhaps doesn't work so well when neglected. Should we be surprised? The bigger question is, who thinks such practices are unique to a lone utility?

So the media might just be right on one thing. There are probably other near-misses out there that could eventually reveal themselves in the form of another event. They're not due to old equipment and poor craftsmanship, but to choices made and risks taken by people trying to turn a profit. The electrical grid was put in place to provide services and was not intended to be a cash cow. Something's gotta give.