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

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

[Robert357]

Significant Transmission Facilities Out Of Service or Limited

The PNSC reported the following outages for today:

For the entire 24 hour period the California-Oregon Intertie (COI) OTC will be 3800 MW north to south and 2450 mw south to north due to the Round Mountain-Table Mountain #1 and #2 series capacitors at Table Mountain being out of service in conjunction with the Lower Monumental-McNary 500-kV line.
The Pacific DC Intertie OTC will be 2506 MW north to south and 1904 MW south to north from 0000 through 2400.
Path #1, BCH/PPoA, is limited to 100 MW in either direction through 9/13 because of the scheduled outage to the Cranbrook-Langdon 500-kV line.

The RDRC reported the following transmission facilities will be out of service today:

Navajo-Westwing Series Capacitor at Navajo Navajo-Crystal Line Reactor
Riverton-Wyopo 230-kV Line Valmont 115 kV cap bank
Arden-Bighorn #2 230-kV Line San Juan-Ojo 345/115-kV Transformer

RM/DSW Transmission Facilities Impacting WECC Qualified Paths: None

The CMRC reported the following outages for today:

Round Mountain-Table Mountain series capacitor banks at Table Mountain cleared for scheduled work HE 0900 8/25/02 through 9/21/02 HE 1800.

Other Comments: Path 26, Midway Vincent, is limited to 500 MW bi-directional due to #1 and #2 Midway-Vincent 500 kV lines forced out of service by wild fire. The Midway-Vincent #3 is in the path of the fire and may trip. If all three lines are open the WECC loop will be open on the Westside.

As noted on the WECCNet message, the CISO utilized the Coordinated PST's on Tuesday, 9/3/2002 from 1700-2000 PDT for USF problems on P-66. This brings the total year to date COPS to 183.

At 0140 CAISO declared Restricted Transmission Maintenance Day from 0500 through 1800 today.

Tuesday's Notable Events: At 1512, CMRC issued a directive to do whatever is necessary to return Path 26 within limit, including shedding firm load. Path limit was 500 MW with flow initially 1350 MW southbound.
1505 to 1534, system frequency declined to a minimum of 59.93 Hz from scheduled 60.02 Hz due to deficient CISO ACE as a result of load shedding not occurring when planned. 1510 to 1522, COI (Path 66) exceeded 3800 MW limit attaining a maximum flow of 4001 MW. At 1519, CMRC issued a second directive to do whatever is necessary to recover ACE and system frequency, including shedding firm load. CISO shed approximately 900 MW of interruptible load in the SCE & SDGE areas.
At 0008 PDT CISO reported feeling an earthquake at the Alhambra control center. CUBE reports a 4.6 magnitude earthquake located 4 miles NE of Yorba Linda in Southern California area. SCE control center did not feel it. No report of any facilities damaged.

[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.