WECC Daily Report (Oops Cal ISO did it again!)

WESTERN ELECTRICITY COORDINATING COUNCIL ^ | March 24, 2003 | WECC staff

[Robert357]

Other Comments: On Friday March 21, 2003 at 1838 PST the Vincent 500/230-kV transformer bank 2AA exploded and tripped the 1AA and 3AA transformer banks. The Midway-Vincent 500-kV Lines (Path 26) were denergized at Vincent and Midway by protective relays. The Vincent-Lugo #1 and #2 500-kV Lines were deenergized at Lugo and Vincent. Several 230-kV lines and pumps at nearby plants were tripped. There is total loss of the 2AA Transformer, the South 500-kV Bus, RTU’s and other equipment in the Station. As of 0300 PST Monday, 3/24 all 500-kV Transmission Lines have been restored to service. All 3 Transformers remain out of service.

Restricted Maintenance Operations are in effect for the next several days. The cause of the explosion is still under investigation but there is no evidence of foul play and all indications point to a catastrophic equipment failure. Other than the pump stations, there was no loss of customer load.

On Saturday March 22, 2003 at 0650 the Cheekye-Malaspina 500-kV circuits in the BCHA system tripped. This caused the Vancouver Island area load to be isolated to the BCHA Control Area. Vancouver Island was generation deficient and shed approximately 878 MW of load. All load and transmission was restored by 0916.

[Robert357]

Personally, I don't think it was Iraq sabotage.

The California ISO is working hard at practicing during low load times so that when peak loads occur this summer they will be able to blackout large portions of California and the West Coast. (/sarcasm)

Seriously, something bad happens fairly regularly in the California ISO reliability area that is an indicator that California electric power reliability is on the ragged edge, even when loads are quite low. This is very bad news for when the system will be strained by heavy loads during the summer. California has an electric power reliability crisis. Californians just don't know it yet. Based on all of the regular and serious failures, it is a question of when there will major blackouts not a question of if they ill happen.

Depending on when you view this, you may need to go from the daily report file to the archives.

[Robert357]

I thought you could use a break from Iraq war-related news viewing on Free Republic.

In a couple of days FERC will tell California what it thinks about the claims for billions in price gouging. From what I have seen the Cal ISO has been at the focal point of problems in the economic dispatch of power and in the reliable operation of the transmission system. They scare the heck out of me.

[meyer]

Its hard to beleive that a system, a grid as big as this could be prone to cascading failures due to the failure of a single device. I work with this stuff every day - that is simply not an acceptable situation. You ALWAYS plan for the next contingency.

[Amerigomag]

Vancouver Island ... shed approximately 878 MW of load.

What are the load shedding priorities in the Canadian system?

If I remember correctly, California's sequence is voulntary customers, then non sensitive government demand, followed by non sensitive rotating blocks.

[Mihalis]

Your information is correct. The disturbance started at 18.38 on Friday, March 21 with a transformer explosion at the Vincent 500 kv substation, which escalated to a fire on the entire substation, when oil from the faulted transformer burned down the 500 kv and 230 kv substation structures. The fire was finally put out at 12.35 Saturday, March 22.

The cause of the explosion is under investigation but there are no indications of sabotage. Transformer explosions are not common but they do occur. This is not necessarily an indication that the California electric power system has low reliability.

[Mihalis]

Whenever a disturbance creates imbalances between load and generation, you have to restore the balance by shedding load or tripping generation. This is normal practice both in Canada and in the US.

[snopercod]

I thought those large transformers had Hydrogen detectors to warn of imminent failure.

[Robert357]

This is not necessarily an indication that the California electric power system has low reliability.

I agree with you to an extent. If this transformer explosion by itself were an isolated and rare event, reliability would not be a serious issue.

The problem I see is that this is NOT an isolated event, but one of a series of equipment breakdowns, unexplained problems, lack of dispatching control over spinning reserves, etc. that is part of and indicative of a major "control" problem on the part of the California ISO.

If you would like to read about other events that have occurred, I suggest the following link Click here for link and start checking things out especially the links provided after comment 18 in this link

You seem knowledgable, so I would appreciate you comment after you check out the links and the history of Cal ISO power grid operation.

[litehaus]

Can I be very personal? Kalifornicate's incompetence has cost me thousands. Gray-out Davis's looking 4 scapegoats
is decimating my portfolio...........I'm sure many others have same problem with this schmuck............

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Thanks for the break!

Calpowercrisis:

To find all articles tagged or indexed using Calpowercrisis, click below:
	click here >>>	Calpowercrisis	<<< click here
(To view all FR Bump Lists, click here)

[farmfriend]

California has an electric power reliability crisis.

That is because we out here in California know what is really important - red-legged frogs and fairy shrimp. (/sarcasm)

[Robert357]

I would just add for the record, that the Cal ISO thinks that the end of March is a period of high temperatures and high loads that require a maintenance restriction notice.

Click here for Cal ISO Market Conditions Notice!!!!

I sure hope you survive the loads that are likely to happen in July and August. Snopercod and I have a bet going on when the big blackout this summer takes place. Our bets are in early to mid July.

Of course, it could be like the blackout that happened, but the ISO said didn't happen last summer, but that is a whole other story.

[hadaclueonce]

I need more details, was the transformer the single contingency? was there more relay action that made it more?
I do this for a living and am kinda curious...
'cept I do it in the biggest island in North Amercica...

BTW, low loads are worse than peak loads for being on the brink. In my opinion, but what does 30 years mean?

[Mihalis]

Thanks for your reply. I'll check the link and will get back to you from my office tomorrow.

[Robert357]

I do this for a living and am kinda curious... 'cept I do it in the biggest island in North Amercica...

A number of years ago, I was brought in to work with an audit group at BC Hydro to look at their system planning criteria and reliability criteria. Vancouver Island is pretty big. I am curious as to which large island in North American you are referring to?

These things happen. Far to often common mode failure is not adequately considered in failure analysis. There was a similar problem a number of years ago at the Bonneville Power Administration Custer 500 kV substation near the Washington State/British Columbia boarder.

A single transformer failed and caught fire. The fire cause the transformer tank to rupture. The oil spilled out and caught fire. After a while, the oil slowly moved "down hill" and started cooking the neighboring tranformer until it burst and the oil from it helped fuel the fire and the oil moved a little farther down hill to the next transformer. They got the fire under control about that time.

Seattle City light has had common mode failure a couple times blacking out big portions of its downtown. They had a great looped system with lots of redundancy. Unfortunately, when a fire occurred in a vault (twice) the redundant systems went into the same vault and both burned up.

I am also reminded of the AC intertie between Oregon and California. They have three lines each separated by quite a distance. Unfortunately, long ago an ice storm rolled in and took out lots and lots of transmission towers all multiple interties.

As a former system planner, spotting potential common mode failure is an interesting skill that takes a while to develop.

[Mihalis]

I have checked some of the links you provided. On the issue of Cal ISO mismanagement I don't have sufficient knowledge to have an opinion. I have no doubts, however, that Gov. Davis has mismanaged the energy situation and many other aspects of California's affairs. On the issue of gaming during the energy crisis you're absolutely right, the Cal ISO had engaged in funny activities, in some cases unlawful activities...but so did many other companies in the region at that time. They probably thought that this was American capitalism re-discovered, that such practices were fair game in the new deregulated environment. They know better now.

Finally, on reliability issues, many of the outages you have described are really not uncommon and certainly not an indicator of mismanagement or poor maintenance practices etc. Breaker failure relay operations, for example, do happen. We are talking about a transmission system of thousands of line miles, extending over a huge geographic area, spanning several states, with generation sites remote from the load centers. Such a system has inherent stability problems which are often mitigated with the installation of special protection systems, called Remedial Action Schemes (RAS).

Also, the practice of shedding load is quite acceptable for certain low probability events. We could make the system much more reliable, almost to 99.99% reliability. But the cost would be enormous for an improvement of reliability which may not be noticeable by many customers.

You have also made certain points regarding the adequacy of the electric power system (spinning reserves etc). I have seen the most recent information issued by the WECC and the NWPP (Northwest Power Pool) and it appears that we do not expect any adequacy problems this coming summer.

You may want to visit the following site for some current papers on the electric power industry. I often provide commentary there under my real name (Mike Sidiropoulos).

http://www.energypulse.net/centers/front.cfm

Regards,
Mihalis

[Robert357]

Thank you for your thoughtful comments.

However, as part of the services I provide to certain electric utilities and large power users, I monitor transmission reliability and review the WECC daily status reports. Also, since I am on the BPA Oasis notification list of transmission line problems I get an interesting other perspective. I can tell you that of all the reliability areas within WECC, only the California/Mexico area has this level of problems with spinning reserves, and extensive outages. Yes, there are breaker operations on other transmission lines in other reliability areas from time to time, but not nearly the frequency that they are occuring in the Cal ISO area. That is what I find troubling.

I agree with you completely that isolated equipment failure is not an indication of poor reliability. However, when one area has much more such failures than other reliability areas and when one area violated agreed upon reserve requirements far more than other areas, there is an indication of a problem.

Last summer the Cal ISO did not follow their own rules regarding shedding load. Rather than move to the next level of crisis and force load shedding, the Cal ISO deliberately "leaned on the PNW system" and dropped frequency in the PNW to avoid limited California blackouts.

Likewise a few months ago, an airplane clipped a transmission line in California and that resulted in generation dropping all up and down the West Coast, and ultimately the relaying off of a pulp mill within British Columbia. I would have expected that interties would have opened up prior to this event cascaded up and down the coast. When I did system planning that was submitted to the old WSCC in Utah, a transmission problem in my area was not to cause dropping of load in another power pool.

I look forward to learning more from you and will check out the link. Thank you.

[lewislynn]

Snopercod and I have a bet going on when the big blackout this summer takes place. Our bets are in early to mid July.

OOPS you did it again. Two people proven to be consistently on the wrong side of the issue are now betting each other the dooms day will fall on the same day...will it be two losers once again on that day?

BTW, my lights didn't even flicker during the last so called energy crisis.

You remember that crisis don't you? It was the one that ended the minute the hearings started on the now (verified by the FERC) fraud and market manipulation that was/is rampant in the industry.

[lewislynn]

I have seen the most recent information issued by the WECC and the NWPP (Northwest Power Pool) and it appears that we do not expect any adequacy problems this coming summer.

Don't spoil it for him with facts. He and some of his friends live to see the day they can salivate over California/ns suffering more blackouts...Or water cut off, or anything bad really.

[Robert357]

OK, I'll bite.

First, the days we have selected in July are different.

Second, the bet isn't on the "entire state going black, it is on a significant blackout.

Third, while your lights may have not flickered, I can assure you that many were not so fortunate as you were and that the economic implications of what happened are impacting the California economy.

Fourth, we are talking about poor reliability in this thread. Bad reliability results in blackouts. It can be caused by a lack of generation, by a lack of transmission maintenance and by other things. From the reports that must be filed daily with the Western Electric Coordinating Council, California's reliaiblity still seems to have real and pressing problems that are unrelated to hydro availability in the PNW. The FERC changes to the price caps do NOT seem to have any effect upon transmission line failures, substation failures, or the failure of the Cal ISO to schedule adequate reserves.

In conclusion, it is these latter issues that are threatening California power reliability during low load times and that I believe will result in a significant outage at some point in the not to distant future.