Ohio Technicians Confused Before Blackout

During the 35 minutes before the nation's worst blackout raced across eight states from Michigan to New York, there was a sense of confusion, uncertainty and anxiety among technicians trying to maintain control of the Ohio power system owned by FirstEnergy, according to transcripts released late Wednesday.

One high voltage line failed, and another, and then a third. A coal-burning power plant was already out and a nuclear reactor was struggling to get enough electricity.

"We have no clue," an engineer at the FirstEnergy Corp. control center in Ohio responded when a regional grid monitor asked what was happening.

The company and its operation of the grid system south of Cleveland have been at the center of the investigation into the blackout, although FirstEnergy officials have said there were problems on other systems across the Midwest that afternoon, not just in its service area.

blackout

it'll be a bunch of transcripts of engineers saying: "WTF is that? Thats not supposed to happen?!?!"

seriously, not tinfoil required here - it was a system failure that was in the "impossible scenario" genre, and will be accounted for next time.

> seriously, not tinfoil required here - it was a system failure that
> was in the "impossible scenario" genre, and will be accounted for
> next time.

But, of course, the corrective actions will cover just one (or a few)
possible failure modes. There will still be plenty of "impossible"
failure modes still left in the system; this is the nature of
systems when their complexity escapes the realm of human
understanding.

With deregulation and the "wheeling" of huge amounts of power hither
and yon, the system has just become too complex to manage. It MIGHT
be manageable if it were switched over to mostly HVDC (High Voltage DC)
but an ac system spanning the continent just can't be restored to
stability after many of the improbable-but-still-possible transient
conditions that can occur.

By the way, did the transcripts remind you of the events in the TMI
control room, where they were SURE that the water level gauge
had to malfunctioning; they couldn't really be that close to exposing
the core!

Atlant

problems were noticeable 45 minutes before the blackout. I work in Oberlin, Ohio, which has its own power generation facilities. It is my understanding that Oberlin Power (or whatever they're called) called our facility 45 minutes before the blackout, saying that there were problems with the grid and suggesting that we switch to generators.

Funny how FirstEnergy didn't know until the lights went out at their HQ. Living in Ohio and having FirstEnergy as my electric supplier, I can tell you that it doesn't surprise me.