Blackouts swept across the Northeast, Great Lakes and eastern Canada Thursday afternoon, but the cause was still unclear late in the day. National news reports were focused on an alleged fire at a Consolidated Edison Co. (ConEd) power plant in New York City and an overload on Niagara Mohawk’s (NiMo) power grid in Upstate New York as potential causes for the widespread outages.

The North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) said Thursday evening that a total of approximately 61,800 MW had been lost, with the following breakout:

Also, a total of 1,340 MW had been restored as of 7:30 EDT. Specifically, 800 MW had been restored in PJM, 40 MW had been restored in Hydro Quebec and 500 MW had been restored in ISO New England.

NERC said the areas most affected centered around the Great Lakes plus New York City, northern New Jersey and parts of New England. “We do not know if these blackouts are related for sure, but it is likely,” NERC said.

It reported that ConEd in New York lost its entire system and that it was not known when service would be restored.

NERC said that the power in Ontario was being brought back on line through connections with Manitoba. Earlier, Alexandra Campbell at the Ontario IMO said there were “widespread outages in Ontario” but they were not limited to Ontario. She said the IMO was attempting to restore power, but still was unsure of the cause of the outages. “We’re beginning to restore the transmission system. We’re not sure how long the restoration will take.”

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) said that it had been informed that the following nine nuclear power plants shut down on Thursday due to grid instabilities:

The NRC said that all plants were “in a safe condition, using their emergency diesel generators where appropriate. NRC resident inspectors will continue to monitor the situation at the affected plants.”

The NRC also said that it was monitoring the situation from its regional and headquarters operations center. Acting NRC Chairman Jeffrey Merrifield was in contact with other federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security.

Michigan-based Consumers Energy said that its electric customers in the southern and eastern portions of the utility’s service territory had been impacted by the outage. “Analysis is continuing and more information will be provided as it becomes available,” the utility said.

NERC also said that the outages did not appear to be the result of a terrorist attack. The Department of Homeland Security issued the following statement to NGI: “The Department is working with state and local officials and the energy sector to determine the cause of the outage, as well as what response measures may need to be taken. We encourage all of those that may be affected to listen and heed the advice of their local authorities.”

The ripple effect from the outages spared the southern part of the country.

“The ERCOT grid remains stable despite reports of difficulties experienced by other power grids within the U.S. and Canada,” said Tom Noel, CEO of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. “Because we are not interconnected with either the Eastern or Western interconnects, what happens in those systems does not affect the reliability of the ERCOT grid.”

He noted that ERCOT recently reached a peak usage of 60,157 MW on Aug. 8, but is currently operating well below that level. “No difficulties were experienced within ERCOT at a much higher level of energy usage than is currently the case. ERCOT presently has no additional information to share with respect to the causes of the disturbances being reported.”

Illinois-based Exelon Corp. said that the Chicago and Philadelphia regions were not affected by the power outages and that Exelon officials were working with local and national industry leaders to help determine the nature and cause of the outages.

A spokesperson for Massachusetts-based NSTAR told NGI that as of Thursday evening, none of the utility’s customers were affected by the outages.

Meanwhile, NERC noted that it was conducting regular conference calls among the NERC reliability coordinators and will provide additional information as it knows more. “We do not know the cause of the disturbances at present but will continue to evaluate the situation throughout the rest of the day and evening,” NERC said.

According to CNN, New York officials have said that the outage was “a natural occurrence and not related to terrorism” and that it was caused by an overload on NiMo’s system.

A spokesperson for ConEd wasn’t immediately available to discuss the outages. According to CNN, a ConEd transformer on East 14th St. in Manhattan was on fire at some point on Thursday. But the Associated Press subsequently quoted New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg as saying smoke from a ConEd plant in the city resulted from the plant’s automatic shutdown, not to a fire.

A spokesperson for the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) confirmed to Power Market Today that outages had hit New York City, but was at a loss to explain the cause.

The New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) reported shortly after 4:30 p.m. that “due to the inability of many participants to access our electronic trading and clearing systems because of the power outage, the systems have been closed until further notice.”

Calling the power outages the “biggest” since 1967, PJM Interconnection President Phillip G. Harris said in a conference call that early indications were the “massive disturbance” that triggered the blackouts likely originated in either northern New York State or Ottawa, Canada.

There appeared to have been a “massive outflow of power to the north” to northern New York or Ottawa, which put added pressure on generation equipment, overloaded the transmission lines and made the system unstable, he told reporters during a telephone briefing. “What precipitated that outflow, I don’t know yet.” He said “it will take some time to get into the forensics of this.”

The power outflow occurred at 4:11 p.m. (EST), and was expected to last for “hours,” Harris said. But he noted he was confident the problem was isolated, and the outages would not spread to any other cities.

He noted that PJM, which supplies power to seven Mid-Atlantic states and Washington DC, was ready to provide New York City with about 2,000-3,000 MW of electricity as soon as the city was prepared to receive it.

Harris said the PJM lost about 5,200 MW of its normal 61,200 MW load within seconds as a result of the outages, affecting customers in northern New Jersey and North Central Pennsylvania. Some of the loss was being restored late Thursday.

“The protective equipment did work” in PJM, and helped to isolate about 96% of the system from the “massive disturbance,” he noted. PJM was a “very major player in being able to isolate this,” as was New England and other parts of the grid, Harris said.

Meanwhile, Stephen G. Whitley, chief operating officer of ISO New England Inc., said that at approximately 4:15 p.m. Thursday, “apparently multiple, major power lines went out of service along Lake Erie, which caused massive power outages in parts of New York, New Jersey, and the Midwest.”

Whitley said that because “our system in New England is closely connected to New York’s, the power system in Southwest Connecticut failed. Areas of Southwest Connecticut lost power as a result.”

No other major portion of New England was affected, Whitley continued. “There has been no physical damage to any part of New England’s transmission system or any generators. Our system held up well. The part of our system that went down is the part of the system that is closest to New York and is the weakest part of our system,” he added.

“ISO New England is working with local utilities to restore power to Southwest Connecticut,” Whitley said. “We anticipate power to be restored within the next several hours.”

The Department of Energy (DOE), which is the lead federal agency on power grid reliability and emergency matters, was assessing the situation with NERC. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission was monitoring the situation as well. “Right now, it looks like it’s a cascading blackout,” said FERC spokesman Bryan Lee. He noted the agency will provide more information when it has “something more definite.”

The outage, which occurred on one of the hottest days of the summer, appeared to be the widest-ranging blackout since 1965 when the entire Mid-Atlantic, Northeast and parts of eastern Canada went dark for more than 12 hours. That incident was caused by an overload on one segment, which tripped off connecting regions like dominoes. After that incident additional controls were installed designed to prevent power failures from spreading to surrounding areas, so that a widespread, paralyzing blackout “could never happen again.”

“The massive power outage in the Northeast and Midwest emphasizes once again what I have been saying for two years now — we need to get a national energy policy in place as soon as possible for the nation,” said Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM), chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

“This outage clearly demonstrates how close the nation is to its energy production and distribution limit,” he added. “I hope that when Congress returns in September the House-Senate conference on an energy policy bill will make rapid progress.”

Domenici said that ensuring the proper level of power to the country “demands that we make trade offs, including production and greater use of such sources as nuclear energy and practical renewable sources. The policy I will pursue in conference will emphasize the principles of adequate production, more efficient distribution, and less dependence on foreign sources of energy.”

Meanwhile, California officials, experienced in both planned and unplanned power blackouts, could do little more Thursday afternoon than wait, watch and speculate about the Eastern power grid blackout. They took the opportunity to put in a pitch for greatly expanding transmission in their state, which has been a loaded, politicized issue the past few years despite the state’s 2000-2001 crisis.

Terry Winter, CEO of the California Independent System Operator (CAISO), emphasized that the western grid operators could not help, nor be hurt by, the Eastern power failure because of the lack of interconnection east to west, or with the third separate grid in Texas.

Winter said this was “absolutely a huge event,” and it can always happen in the west and other areas. “If you get the wrong set of mechanical failures, then clearly you are going to get a large outage.” Based on his 40 years of experience and the similar western grid failure seven years ago (August 1996), Winter said he had no idea how long it would take to restore the bulk of the customers, but he was sure it would be longer than just a few hours.

“When you trip off a lot of large units like these, you have to get them ready to operate again, which means you have to evacuate most of the steam (in generation plants) and then re-generate it. And at the time you bring the units back on, they have to be matched with the load. This takes time — not in minutes, but in hours.”

After being briefed by CAISO, Gov. Gray Davis issued a short prepared reaction statement. “We have been assured that California’s electrical grid is not at risk. I have ordered the California Highway Patrol, the Office of Homeland Security, and the National Guard to take all necessary actions to ensure California’s electrical grid continues to function effectively.

“According to ISO, we face no such dangers in California because we have added 6,000 MW of new power in the past three years. We are not vulnerable if one major power plant goes out of service. Other than airline delays because of the closure of airports in several (Eastern) cities, we do not expect Californians to be affected by this power outage.”

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