WECC Daily Report of System Status (Unreported 900 MW S. Cal Blackout)

WESTERN ELECTRICITY COORDINATING COUNCIL ^ | September 4, 2002 | WECC staff

[Robert357]

at Univ. of San Diego. We had a black out

Not sure what was going on, the problem was during the 3 PM hour. Some College campus' have voluntarily opted for interruptible rates for a portion of their load. My oldest son goes to Pepperdine and their dorms are on an SCE interruptible rate. He used to give me Calpowercrisis updates daily during the 2000-to-2001 timeframe.

[Little Bill]

59.6 HZ is the trip setting on our relays, NE

[chadsworth]

Hopefully, this will get to the Simon Camp

Doesn't someone have a way to contact the Simon camp?

I totally agree - all information of this nature that would help Dump Davis should be forwarded to them.

[Carry_Okie]

This one is hot.

Time to do your job.

[Robert357]

...What are CMRC & RDRC & HE? (APS is Arizona Public Service, my old Alma Mater.)

OK, WECC has some Reliability Management Centers that are suppose to manage things and impose fines on WECC members that don't do the right thing. (No, not much in fines have been imposed as of yet.) Actually, if you read between the lines on the first Daily report, where it lists all the times that the Cal ISO has required phase shifting to be bailed out, the Reliability Center might be a putting the Cal ISO on notice.

The WECC has three Reliability Centers: California/Mexico Reliability Center (Yes, if it were not for CMRC, the Cal ISO would operate things like a 3rd-World County--how strangly appropriate!); Rocky Mt/Desert Reliability Center; and Pacific Northwest Security Center.

I am truly embarised to say that I had to call to find out what HE was. It means Hour Ending. As Homer Simpson would say Duhhhh!

[snopercod]

59.6 HZ is the trip setting on our relays, NE

Are you at a power plant, or substation?

[snopercod]

Thanks for deciphering those acronyms.

Rereading the original post, it struck me that 99.99% of people have absolutely no idea of the complexity of the Western transmission grid. That's one in ten thousand, which is probably optimistic.

You have hundreds of generators all wanting to spin at various speeds, and millions of loads flowing this way and that. Pulling and pushing. The capacitor banks and reactors (as well as a lot of sophisticated electronics) are all designed to keep the grid stable, control-system-wise.

Turbine shafts have been snapped in the past by "sub-synchronous oscillations" in the grid to which they are connected. Power has oscillated clockwise around the Western "donut", and then in several minutes, turned around and flowed in the opposite direction, using up prescious transmission line ampacity. It's almost a black art keeping this whole thing running, yet everybody thinks "electricity comes from walls".

All of this is totally beyond the general population of America in general, and W-a-a-a-a-a-y-y beyond the typical Californian. They might as well presume to "understand" orbital mechanics or molecular biology.

Electricity is too precious of a commodity to be left to the government or the mob to produce and distribute.

[Little Bill]

Power Plant.

[First_Salute]

Amen, brother.

[cinFLA]

The power grid is not the telcom system, where calls can be routed around problems.

Most major lines can be routed around in some manner.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

I think in the West the problem is more severe. (as I understand it! particularly between North and south Cal there is basically one Major path!

[heleny]

We had a three-hour blackout last Monday afternoon, 9/2, in Thousand Oaks, CA, an area served by SoCal Edison, (the day before the one in this article), affecting some street lights and many homes. No reason was given, and we did not know of any energy alerts, but it was hot that day.