 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Prepared Witness Testimony The House Committee on Energy and Commerce
Blackout 2003: How Did It Happen and Why?
Full Committee on Energy and Commerce
Mr. Brantley H. Eldridge
Chairman Tauzin, Ranking Member Dingell, and Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to assist the Committee's review of the August 14th blackout events through participation in this important hearing. ECAR is one of the ten regional reliability councils of the North American Electric Reliability Council ("NERC"). ECAR serves as the forum for addressing matters related to the reliability of the bulk power systems in the east central region of the U.S. Parts of the ECAR Region were among the widespread areas affected by the blackout events. Among the major questions to be answered are: what caused the blackout and why did it spread so far? ECAR Overview Formed in 1967 in the aftermath of the 1965 Northeast Blackout, ECAR is a non-profit, member funded, unincorporated association. Membership in ECAR is voluntary and is open to any entity having an effect on or interest in the reliability of the ECAR bulk power systems (generation and high voltage transmission). The membership of ECAR includes entities that own and operate electric utility systems in a geographic area covering all or portions of the states of Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Tennessee. Since ECAR's formation, all key entities in the ECAR Region that are involved in the planning and operation of bulk power systems in ECAR have been and are members. ECAR Structure The core ECAR governing document is the "East Central Area Reliability Coordination Agreement" ("ECAR Agreement"). The stated purpose of the ECAR Agreement is "to augment reliability of the parties' bulk power supply through coordination of the parties' planning and operation of their generation and transmission facilities." Under the ECAR Agreement, the governing body of ECAR is the Executive Board. Each member of ECAR is represented on the Executive Board. Reporting to the Executive Board is the Coordination Review Committee ("CRC") which, like the Executive Board, is composed of representatives of ECAR members. The CRC directs and oversees all technical activities of ECAR. To carry out its responsibilities, the CRC is supported by nine member-populated technical panels. ECAR also has a Market Interface Committee that serves as the ECAR forum for addressing issues related to the interface between the NERC and ECAR reliability criteria and the wholesale electric market. A small full-time staff located in Canton, Ohio provides support necessary to perform the ECAR's various functions. Currently, there are twenty one (21) ECAR "Members" and seventeen (17) ECAR "Associate Members." Members have voting rights and provide most of the technical and financial support for ECAR activities. "Associate Members" do not have voting rights and provide relatively little of the technical and financial support of ECAR, but are represented on the ECAR Executive Board and in other ECAR groups, and participate in deliberations regarding the reliability of the ECAR bulk power systems. ECAR members commit to (i) adhere to the reliability policies, principles, procedures, criteria, and practices adopted by the Executive Board pursuant to the ECAR Agreement; (ii) furnish all system data, studies, and other technical support necessary to coordinate planning and operation of ECAR's bulk power supply; and (iii) provide necessary financial support. Reliability Criteria and ECAR Role The ECAR Members have developed a set of reliability criteria called the "ECAR Documents." There are currently fifteen (15) ECAR Documents that have been approved and adopted by the ECAR Executive Board. The ECAR Documents are written to be in concert with the NERC Operating Policies and Planning Standards (collectively, the "reliability rules of the road"). The ECAR Documents also address certain ECAR-specific reliability criteria. Compliance with the ECAR Documents and the NERC Operating Policies and Planning Standards is considered a fundamental obligation of all ECAR members. It is important to note that ECAR is not a system planning or operating entity. Rather, ECAR is the forum through which those entities in the ECAR Region that are responsible for system planning and real-time system operations address and coordinate matters related to the reliability of the bulk power systems in ECAR. The responsibility for the planning and operation of the ECAR bulk power systems rests with ECAR Members. Each ECAR Member has the obligation to plan and operate its generation and/or transmission system in accordance with the NERC Operating Policies and Planning Standards and the ECAR Documents. Blackout Investigation As the Committee is aware, the August 14th blackout impacted electric systems in Ohio and Michigan, among several other states and parts of Canada. Affected systems in Ohio and Michigan are part of the ECAR Region. The most severely impacted systems in the ECAR Region were those of FirstEnergy, Detroit Edison, and International Transmission Company. To a much lesser degree, Consumers Energy and Michigan Electric Transmission Company in Michigan and American Electric Power in Ohio were also affected. Following the blackout came the major task of restoring service to all affected customers. The ECAR Region systems that were impacted by the blackout immediately focused their resources on the restoration effort. Neighboring ECAR systems and others that were not blacked out were able to facilitate the restoration process by assisting in the reenergization of transmission facilities and supplying power. Many impacted customers had their service restored within several hours of the blackout, although for some customers it took one to two days. ECAR Participation in Joint Investigation The United States and Canada are jointly conducting an investigation of the August 14th blackout events, with Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham leading the U.S. involvement in this effort. NERC and its regional reliability councils are fully supporting the U.S.-Canada investigation through parallel investigations being conducted by NERC, ECAR, Northeast Power Coordinating Council ("NPCC"), Mid-Atlantic Area Council ("MAAC"), and others. ECAR members have provided information to NERC's inquiry. Every effort is being made to properly coordinate the regional reliability council and NERC investigations. The results of the ECAR, NPCC, and MAAC investigations will be inputs to the NERC investigation. In turn, the results of the NERC investigation will be an important input to the U.S.-Canada investigation. It is ECAR's understanding that the U.S. Department of Energy will coordinate release of information related to the investigation of the blackout events. The various investigations are not complete. While it is not known at this time how long it will take to conclude this detailed work, it will certainly require several more weeks, if not months, to finish the investigations. A massive amount of technical data still being accumulated will be analyzed and evaluated to determine the cause(s) of the blackout. The end result will be the release of a report from the joint U.S.-Canada investigation effort. While it is premature to speculate on the final conclusions, once the root cause(s) of the blackout are identified and understood, ECAR (along with NERC and other regional reliability councils) will utilize the lessons learned from the investigations to: (i) implement all needed actions to lessen the probability of future widespread, cascading blackouts, (ii) reduce the impact of such an occurrence should it happen again, and (iii) enable more rapid system restoration. ECAR Inquiry Elements Among other questions to be addressed, the investigations by ECAR and others are considering such issues as: 1) What were the conditions in the interconnected power systems in the several hours prior to the blackout, and what was the precise sequence of events that led up to the initiation of the cascading blackout? 2) What caused these events to result in the initiation of the cascading blackout? 3) Once the blackout began, why did it spread so far and so fast? 4) Did system protection devices and other equipment vital to the reliable operation of the bulk power systems operate as intended? 5) Are there any problems or deficiencies with the existing reliability rules and procedures? 6) Were there violations of the existing reliability rules for the real-time operation of the interconnected power systems? 7) Were communication and system operation oversight mechanisms and protocols a factor in the blackout occurring? 8) What can be done, both short term and long term, to prevent such blackouts in the future? Building on Lessons Learned These questions are central to developing a more comprehensive understanding of August 14th. Even as we are conducting this ongoing investigation, it is important for the Committee to be aware of the lessons learned and implemented in the almost forty years since the major 1965 Northeast Blackout. As a result of the 1965 blackout investigations, NERC, ECAR, and the other regional reliability councils were formed in the 1967-68 timeframe. In the intervening years, NERC and its regional councils have developed operating and planning standards and other protocols aimed at keeping the interconnected bulk power systems of North America reliable. By "reliable", it is meant that the bulk power systems will be planned so as to meet the aggregate demand for electric energy (industrial, commercial and residential customer load), and that the interconnected power systems will be operated in real-time so as to prevent localized problems within the bulk power system from becoming widespread, uncontrolled, cascading blackouts. Ongoing ECAR Reliability Actions With the rare exceptions of the 1977 Northeast blackout (which was not as widespread as the one in 1965) and the 1996 events in the Western Interconnection, the industry's collective efforts to maintain the reliability of the interconnected bulk power systems have been successful until the August 14th blackout. A large, complex interconnected power system cannot be made 100% fail-safe. The goal of NERC and its regional councils is to prevent the inevitable local problems from cascading out of control to other areas. Clearly, something went wrong on August 14th, and the investigation now underway will, in time, result in a full understanding of what were the cause(s) of the 2003 blackout. As part of its scope of responsibility, ECAR periodically assesses the reliability of the ECAR Region and revises its Documents as needed. Some of the steps that ECAR does and has done since the earlier blackout events to improve the reliability of the bulk power systems include: 1. ECAR performs assessments of the adequacy of the ECAR transmission systems to satisfy the load requirements of our region. This is normally done twice a year (for the summer and winter seasons). Periodically, an assessment is done for a future year. The purpose of these assessments is to identify potential transmission constraints and to provide a relative indication of the expected performance of the ECAR transmission systems and surrounding Regions' systems as compared to the previous year under a variety of possible operating scenarios. 2. ECAR participates on three interregional groups that assess the adequacy of the transmission systems for the upcoming summer and winter seasons in the involved regions. For the various interregional studies, ECAR works with NPCC, MAAC, Mid-America Interconnected Network ("MAIN"), and the Virginia-Carolina ("VACAR") and Tennessee Valley Authority ("TVA") subregions of Southeastern Electric Reliability Council ("SERC"). The interregional studies and the ECAR-specific assessments are very comprehensive and cover many possible scenarios. However, the interconnected bulk power system is very complex and it is not practical to study every possible scenario of system operating conditions. 3. ECAR has implemented an Automatic Reserve Sharing System ("ARS"). The purpose of this system is to enable a company to recover from a sudden loss of generation as quickly as possible. In essence, whenever an ECAR generator trips, all the Control Areas in ECAR may be called upon to participate in replacing the power from the generator that tripped instead of just the Control Area where the tripped generator resides. Use of the ARS results in one or more ECAR systems increasing generation to replace the power lost when a unit is tripped, and speeds the recovery from the lost generation. The ARS system is most useful when the system demand is high and generation reserves are tight. 4. ECAR has implemented a FERC-approved Inadvertent Settlement Tariff. The purpose of this tariff is to discourage companies, through financial penalties, from taking power from the Interconnection during periods when power is costly and the interconnection is operating below normal frequency. 5. ECAR performs assessments of the adequacy of generation resources to satisfy the load requirements of our region. Three assessments are done every year. One is done for the upcoming summer period, one is done for the upcoming winter period, and one is done for the next ten years (with primary emphasis on the next five years). For each of the items, it is premature to determine their effectiveness or ineffectiveness concerning the August 14th blackout. We need to understand the cause(s) of the blackout events before we can fully evaluate this question. Any deficiencies that are identified from the investigations will be corrected. Preventing a Reoccurrence What we clearly do know at this juncture is that the blackout affected a significant portion of the east central and northeastern parts of the country. Fortunately, the cascading did not spread through the Eastern Interconnection. The basic reason it did not spread further is that the automated control systems for those transmission systems that did not shut down detected abnormal operating conditions and disconnected their transmission lines from those of affected systems. The purpose of such automated system control operations is to prevent possible damage to major equipment and injury to utility personnel and the public. Avoiding damage to major equipment enables the system restoration process to proceed much more quickly than it otherwise would. Systems Modernization and Expansion Priority Certainly, one issue that must be addressed, apart from any specific lessons learned from the blackout, is how to move forward with necessary modernization, upgrades, and expansion of the U.S.'s interconnected high voltage transmission systems. By and large, these systems have served the Nation well. However, there have been relatively few new transmission lines built in the U.S. in the last 15 years, even as the demand for electricity has continued to grow and new generation has been installed to meet the growing demand. The reasons for this situation have been well documented by many parties and key factors include: (i) lack of economic incentives to invest in new transmission infrastructure; (ii) inability and uncertainty regarding rate recovery for transmission investments; and (iii) public and governmental opposition to construction of new transmission lines which makes it very difficult to obtain the necessary permits to construct needed new lines. Realigning System Constraint Another important issue is that the existing transmission infrastructure is now being used in ways for which it was not designed. This is primarily a result of the deregulation of the generation segment of the electric power industry. The Energy Policy Act of 1992 paved the way for competition in the generation segment and the subsequent FERC Order 888 provided for open access to the interconnected transmission systems to enable the establishment of large regional markets for electric energy. The existing transmission infrastructure was initially designed primarily to enable neighboring utilities to exchange power in the event of a loss of generation or for economic reasons. With the deregulation of the generation segment, many transmission lines are now often heavily loaded as large amounts of power are transferred across multi-state regions. This has resulted in a situation where some transmission lines are now being operated closer to their design limits more of the time than before deregulation opened use of the transmission systems to foster wholesale competition. This is not to say that the transmission systems are being operated beyond their allowable limits, but only to point out that some transmission systems are operating with less margin than before for contingencies. In those areas where the transmission system is frequently constrained (heavily loaded and unable to take any more power flow), and where it is also politically or otherwise not feasible to build needed new transmission, the installation of local generation facilities (as opposed to remotely located facilities) would help to ease the burden now placed on such constrained transmission lines. Federal and state governmental agencies can play a key role by taking actions to improve the ability of utilities and merchant generators to site new generation facilities in locations that would help ease transmission constraints. The benefits to the country of such actions would be a more secure transmission system that would operate more reliably while achieving the aspirations of deregulation. Legislative and Regulatory Action Finally, apart from any specific actions the blackout investigations may identify as necessary to enhance the real-time operational security of the interconnected bulk power systems, government policymakers are urged to address: 1) The need for passage and implementation of federal reliability legislation that would make compliance with bulk power system reliability standards mandatory and enforceable. 2) The need to provide appropriate economic incentives for investments in needed expansion, upgrading, and modernizing of the interconnected transmission systems and related critical electric system infrastructure. 3) The need to provide for the siting of major transmission projects through eminent domain, if necessary, when it is determined by appropriate governmental authorities to be for the greater good of the Nation. 4) The need for resolution of the on-going national debate regarding the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ("FERC") initiatives for the establishment of Regional Transmission Organizations ("RTOs") and Standard Market Design ("SMD"). * * * Mr. Chairman, on behalf of the ECAR membership, we are committed to doing everything possible to determine the cause(s) of the August 14th blackout and to help ensure that bulk power system reliability is maintained in the future. ECAR is available to provide any additional information the Committee may request.
|
|||||||||||
|
