There is no evidence to suggest that events in Michigan or actions taken by Michigan utilities or transmission operators were factors contributing to the cause of the massive Aug. 14 blackout that rippled across large swaths of the United States and parts of Canada, the Michigan Public Service Commission (MPSC) said in the first comprehensive, state-specific report to be released related to the blackout.

“All of the transmission line and power plant outages that occurred in the two and one-half hours preceding the power surges that precipitated the blackout involved the facilities” of FirstEnergy and American Electric Power (AEP) in Ohio, the report’s executive summary stated.

The MPSC said that these events led to two large power surges as power from southern Ohio attempted to reach load in northern Ohio. The first surge was from southern Ohio, west to Indiana, north to western Michigan, east to the Detroit area and south to northern Ohio. This surge resulted in the opening of interconnections in central Michigan between the western part of the state and the Detroit area. These interconnection trips occurred as designed to prevent damage to equipment from the power surge, the report said.

The second power surge involved a giant loop running from southern Ohio through Pennsylvania, New York, Ontario, Michigan and northern Ohio. This surge resulted in the blackout around what is generally referred to as the Lake Erie Loop.

The MPSC’s report also concludes that Michigan utilities and transmission companies were not notified of the problems being experienced by FirstEnergy and AEP and received no advance warning of the potential blackout.

The first indication in Michigan of an impending emergency occurred at about 4:09 p.m. (EDT) on the day of the blackout when an interconnection in central Michigan exceeded its emergency rating as a result of the first power surge coursing through the state. A minute later, the power outages began and by 4:15 p.m., the blackout was complete. A total of 2.3 million customers of Detroit Edison Co., Consumers Energy Co. and the Lansing Board of Water and Light were left without power.

Moreover, the report found that the Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator (MISO), the regional reliability coordinator for FirstEnergy, should have informed affected transmission operators of the disturbances that were occurring on FirstEnergy’s system. The report concludes that MISO’s reliability coordination structure, consisting of 23 independent transmission companies, is flawed.

MISO’s board of directors last month voted to withdraw and subsequently refile a proposed energy markets tariff and focus on expediting reliability enhancements already underway. FERC recently told the grid operator that it needs to reassess the amount of control that it has over the grid operations in its territory so that it can be certain of ensuring reliability.

The MPSC report also concludes that there was no effective support from regional coordinators responsible for reliability within the Ohio area. Four organizations were involved in discussions regarding the electrical disturbances, yet no one entity was able to see the whole picture, the MPSC said.

The MPSC said that restoration efforts after the blackout by Detroit Edison, Consumers Energy and the Lansing Board of Water and Light were appropriate.

The MPSC’s investigation focused on, from Michigan’s point of view, what caused the blackout and how Michigan’s utilities and transmission operators reacted both to the outage and to the events preceding it. It also focused on the utilities’ efforts to restore power following the blackout, as well as recommendations designed to prevent future disruptions.

A joint U.S.-Canada task force is charged with finding the so-called “root cause” of the blackout and is expected to release its own interim report related to the blackout in the near future. In a recent interview with the Associated Press, Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham said that the report will point to a number of causes, as opposed to a single event, as being behind the historic blackout.

“Our investigation leads to the conclusion that electric reliability has been seriously compromised by the fragmented and ineffective regulation of the electric transmission system,” the MPSC report went on to say, noting that the Midwest power market is coordinated through two regional transmission organizations (RTO), rather than one. “Moreover, the two RTOs are voluntary organizations that do not cover contiguous territories but rather are intermixed in a checkerboard fashion.”

The MPSC said that this “swiss cheese” approach to coordination prevents any one entity from comprehending the overall situation, a situation that is exacerbated by a lack of enforceable reliability standards.

The report said that while the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) is responsible for the development of procedures for reliability coordinators, it lacks the authority to enforce those standards. A NERC investigation of compliance in 2002 found 444 violations of operating measures totaling $9 million in “simulated sanctions.”

“In our opinion, the simulated enforcement of reliability standards is inadequate to protect Michigan or the nation’s citizens,” the MPSC said. “We recommend that the FERC be authorized to require membership in a single transmission organization for each region and have the jurisdiction to mandate the development of reliability standards and enforce those standards with real rather than simulated sanctions.”

The entire 107-page report, including an executive summary and additional recommendations, is available at: michigan.gov/blackout.

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