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Investigators pin origin of blackout on FirstEnergy Corporation failures
By: Josef Hebert
Issue date: 11/20/03 Section: News
WASHINGTON - The nation's worst blackout began with three power line failures in Ohio and should have been contained by operators at FirstEnergy Corp., a three-month government investigation concluded Wednesday.
The report by a U.S.-Canadian task force said the FirstEnergy operators did not respond properly, allowing the Aug. 14 outage to cascade, eventually cutting off electricity to 50 million people in eight states and Canada.
The task force also cited outdated procedures and shortcomings at a regional grid monitoring center in Indiana that kept officials there from grasping the emerging danger and helping FirstEnergy deal with it.
''This blackout was largely preventable,'' Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said.
The task force said it found ''no computer viruses or any sort of illicit cyber activities'' to blame. It also concluded that there was no deliberate damage or tampering with equipment associated with the outage.
Among the faults found at FirstEnergy was a simple failure to keep trees around power lines trimmed.
FirstEnergy, the nation's fourth largest investor-owned utility company, had no immediate comment on the report. The company, based in Akron, Ohio, has maintained that its problems were but some of many in the Midwest power grid on the day of the blackout and that it should not be singled out.
The task force report cites the failure of a FirstEnergy line near Cleveland, follow by problems with two of its other lines, as the ''initial events'' of the blackout.
The loss of the three lines caused too much electricity to flow into nearby lines, causing an overload. Because those lines not prepared for the sudden increase in power, the system became unstable as the balance between available power and demand deteriorated, said the report.
It said the company's failure to adequately trim trees along the lines ''was the common cause'' for the lines tripping and said overall FirstEnergy ''failed to ensure the security of its transmission system.''
The report by a U.S.-Canadian task force said the FirstEnergy operators did not respond properly, allowing the Aug. 14 outage to cascade, eventually cutting off electricity to 50 million people in eight states and Canada.
The task force also cited outdated procedures and shortcomings at a regional grid monitoring center in Indiana that kept officials there from grasping the emerging danger and helping FirstEnergy deal with it.
''This blackout was largely preventable,'' Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said.
The task force said it found ''no computer viruses or any sort of illicit cyber activities'' to blame. It also concluded that there was no deliberate damage or tampering with equipment associated with the outage.
Among the faults found at FirstEnergy was a simple failure to keep trees around power lines trimmed.
FirstEnergy, the nation's fourth largest investor-owned utility company, had no immediate comment on the report. The company, based in Akron, Ohio, has maintained that its problems were but some of many in the Midwest power grid on the day of the blackout and that it should not be singled out.
The task force report cites the failure of a FirstEnergy line near Cleveland, follow by problems with two of its other lines, as the ''initial events'' of the blackout.
The loss of the three lines caused too much electricity to flow into nearby lines, causing an overload. Because those lines not prepared for the sudden increase in power, the system became unstable as the balance between available power and demand deteriorated, said the report.
It said the company's failure to adequately trim trees along the lines ''was the common cause'' for the lines tripping and said overall FirstEnergy ''failed to ensure the security of its transmission system.''
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