November 20, 2003

Blackout Report: Maintenance, Training and Communication Errors

U.S.-Canada Power System Outage Task Force - Interim Report: Causes of the August 14th Blackout in the United States and Canada (includes links to full report and to component sections in PDF format).

The New York Times says the November 19 report (link to full text above) points to FirstEnergy and its oversight entity, Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator as primarily responsible for allowing initial problems to escalate. Inaction and lack of communication within the network compounded initial failures due to inadequate maintenance, according to the Times story. "Blackout Report Blames Ohio Utility".
(Read more ... )

The Times said, in part that: "Much of the broad picture the report paints of Aug. 14 — the malfunctioning computer systems, the lack of information, the sequence of failures — has been known for months. But the details released today lay out previously unknown layers of dysfunction, presenting the hours leading up to the blackout as almost a comedy of errors among the people who were supposed to know and control what was happening to that section of the power grid."

Students of network science should find this report a valuable case study in the importance of communication within the network in order to address emergent problems. Network scientists such as Barabasi have studied the importance of communication "short-cuts" and human interaction across the network as a means of avoiding the delays and overload that result from reliance upon centric systems for command and control. When time is a critical factor and stakes are high, open network and peer-to-peer communication becomes a vital resource, one that may have been critically lacking here.

See also our September posting on the Blackout of '03: Unintended Consequences: NYT: Elec Grid Overseers Missed Big Picture

DougSimpson.com/blog

Posted by dougsimpson at November 20, 2003 07:18 AM | TrackBack
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