On a hot day in August 2003, a high-voltage transmission line failed in Ohio, followed by a series of failures on other vital lines over the next two hours. As the massive power flows sought a path of least resistance, they overloaded other high-voltage lines and the time intervals became shorter between each subsequent failure.
Two hours and 10 minutes after the initial incident, the lights started going out along the south shore of Lake Erie, from Toledo, Ohio, to Buffalo, New York. Within two and a half minutes, line failures, generator shutdowns and disconnects cascaded through Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Vermont, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Ontario. By the time the last circuit breaker tripped, 256 power plants were off line, more than 60,000 megawatts (MW) had stopped flowing and 55 million people were without electricity, some for as long as four days.
What’s happened since that day? More importantly, what is still being implemented that will continue to boost the reliability of that region of the country?
For starters, there is the 500 kilovolt (kV) Susquehanna-Roseland transmission line, scheduled to be completed in 2015. It runs from northeast Pennsylvania to densely populated northern New Jersey, and it will beef up a circuit that first went into service in the 1920s. A line of that capacity can typically carry 1,000 to 1,500 MW of energy.
Another major project, the planned Champlain Hudson Power Express, will bring 1,000 MW of hydro power via a 330-mile direct current line from Quebec to New York by about 2018. It was approved by the New York State Public Service Commission last year and is awaiting federal approval.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) stepped into the general transmission line discussion when it issued Order 1000, which aims to strengthen inter- and intraregional transmission planning and ease barriers to new market players. While the order is still being debated in the courts, it has the potential to spark a new round of construction on long-distance transmission lines.
Capex for Transmission Jumps Dramatically
In the years since the event, capital expenditures on transmission lines have seen dramatic increases. FERC, working under a Congressional mandate, gave the North American Reliability Corp. (NERC) the authority to enforce its reliability standards. The electric utility industry responded by substantially ramping up its capital spending to modernize the transmission and distribution infrastructure.
Edison Electric Institute statistics show that nationwide capital spending for transmission rose to $10.2 billion annually by 2010 from $4.1 billion in 2003, a 147% increase, said Robert Mechler, Director of Transmission and Distribution Project Development, Energy, for Black & Veatch. For the 10 years since the blackout, the spending increase for transmission has close to tripled, and in the Northeast U.S., transmission capital budgets are estimated 250% higher, he said.
Rick Crowdis, Vice President, Energy, Black & Veatch, noted, “The new investments have increased capacity on existing lines, which is easy to do using an existing right of way, and by adding new lines where rights of way can be obtained.”
Completed Transmission Projects
Mechler said that a number of “backbone projects” were completed in the PJM Interconnection service area, which essentially extends from New Jersey south to North Carolina and west to Chicago. PJM describes these backbones as high-visibility upgrades that usually resolve reliability and market congestion issues.
One such project, the Trans Allegheny Interstate Line (TrAIL), a 215-mile, 500 kV line went into service in 2011. It runs from a junction of two 500 kV lines in southern Pennsylvania, across West Virginia, Maryland and Virginia.
Further east, the Neptune Project, a 65-mile undersea and underground 660-MW high-voltage direct current line, tied Long Island to the PJM system for the first time when it went into service in 2007.
On circuits that ring Lake Erie, where much of the 2003 crisis occurred, huge transformers called phase angle regulators have been installed to better control power flows. Their use is still the subject of lengthy proceedings at FERC over who should bear the costs.
Distributed Generation
Since the big power outage, another dynamic has recently developed, Mechler said. New Environmental Protection Agency rules on coal-fired power plants have led utilities in Ohio, Pennsylvania and elsewhere to announce major generation shutdowns – 10,000 MW in Ohio alone. Now utilities are looking at new lines to reconfigure the grid based on new power flows because generation is becoming more dispersed.
The productive Marcellus and Utica shale gas plays in Ohio and Pennsylvania are creating a push for new gas-fired generation. “I suspect we’ll see a lot of plants proposed for that area in the next five to 10 years, which will change the landscape quite a bit,” Mechler said.
The changing fuel mix is part of how the grid has evolved over the past decade. Yet, the different storage capability between coal plants and natural gas plants is a potential issue, Mechler said.
“Coal-fired plants can store fuel in large coal piles, and can operate for a month with the supply on hand. You can’t do that with gas. If you lose a pipeline, you might have a day or two of supply in storage tanks,” he explained.
In recent years, Mechler added, there has been a substantial amount of work to evaluate reliability risks and identify redundant supply and storage options. This can entail Integrated Resource Planning (IRP), a service Black & Veatch performs, along with engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) of transmissions lines.
The industry has also seen growth in renewable energy, which have their own limits on availability and capacity. That has sparked conversation around how much back-up generation should be required, and that discussion is ongoing.
But what is quite evident now, is that by providing full enforcement authority to NERC, policymakers and regulators have entered into a more active role in the industry, Mechler said.
One of the biggest lessons of 2003 was the realization of the fragility of the electric system, and the importance of the power system to the overall quality of life. Natural disasters, such as Superstorm Sandy, bring the lesson home again.
Can such a power failure happen again?
“It is not likely that we’ll see this again on such a scale,” Crowdis said. “It continues to take a great effort by utilities to keep the lights on. They constantly make sure they have adequate supply, reliable transmission and distribution so they may provide the good customer service we have come to enjoy and appreciate.”
Published originally on Black & Veatch Solutions
