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by Calhouner
AEP/Allegheny say we need PATH to stop brownouts and blackouts. Is this true? Will PATH prevent blackouts?
The simple answer is "no."
In fact, if PATH were to be built, the likelihood that West Virginia electrical consumers would be part of the kind of massive blackout that hit Ontario, Ohio and the Northeast in 2003 would rise dramatically. Why? Because PATH would be a huge conduit for waves of unstable current flows if a massive event began in the eastern section of the PJM Interconnection. Right now, without PATH, West Virginia power users are relatively isolated from these cascading blackout events on the east coast.
Electrical engineer George Loehr is Chair of the Executive Committee of the New York State Reliability Council and has been deeply involved in analyzes of most of the major blackouts in the Northeast since 1965. Here is what this national expert on blackouts has to say:
Blackouts are usually caused by contingencies more severe than standards/criteria, by equipment failures, control system problems, human error, or by some combination of these. They always involve a break-up of the bulk power transmission system. Blackouts are not caused by shortages of generating capacity. Nor are they caused by an inability to transfer as much power as some might wish from remote locations to load centers. Blackouts can rarely be anticipated. They are almost always unexpected, and can happen at any time - few have occurred at or near peak load, for example, or coincident with a shortage of generating capacity. They develop in seconds or fractions of seconds rather than hours or days. [emphasis mine]
In their justification for PATH and TrAIL, PJM engineers have created computer models that stress the PJM system under peak load conditions and simulate loss of power plants from the system. These models generate problems, but those problems have nothing to do with blackouts and little to do with real world operating conditions.
Note what Mr. Loehr said in his Senate testimony last year, quoted above. Blackouts rarely happen under peak load conditions. They are never caused by generating plants dropping off the system. Blackouts can rarely be anticipated. In other words, you can't model real world blackouts on computers. Blackouts are not caused by problems with transmitting enough power from one place to another.
In his Senate testimony, Mr. Loehr stated that
[S]ome misguided proposals have been made to advance corporate agendas rather than serve the well-being of ordinary customers - mainly by trying to get proposed high voltage transmission lines approved as essential to reliability.
He identified one of those "misguided proposals" as
Blackout "scare tactics" intended to frighten customers and public officials, compelling them to endorse the construction of facilities or implementation of policies which are not required to preserve or enhance reliability.
So, what about these "brownouts" that are mentioned by power company PR people? Brownouts are not "little blackouts."
In his responses to further questions from Senators in last year's hearing, Mr. Loehr shed some light on brownouts:
"Rolling blackouts" are not blackouts in the sense of November 9, 1965, or August 14, 2003. They involve rotating feeder outages, voltage reductions ("brownouts"), and public appeals; they do not involve instability, system separations, and total loss of power supply over large geoelectrical areas. Also, "rolling blackouts" are caused by inadequate generating and related resources (DSM etc.), not by a lack of transmission. Of course, insufficient transmission can sometimes contribute to a resource availability problem, but in recent years I have seen very few examples.
And
NERC Standards permit controlled load shedding for unlikely combinations of contingencies and operating conditions. Some refer to these as "rolling blackouts," a scare technique. The significant difference between controlled load shedding and a cascading failure (blackout) is that controlled load shedding is normally done for only short periods, after which service is restored.
Brownouts are voltage reductions that are created by system operators in response to a variety of problems. Brownouts are accepted operating procedure as allowed under NERC standards that govern allowable operator behavior. They are caused by a number of factors but, Mr. Loehr says "not by a lack of transmission."
So, what do blackouts and brownouts have to do with the need for PATH? In a word -- nothing. As Mr. Loehr says, they are only used as scare tactics by power companies trying to get electricity rate payers and regulators to support their latest profit making ventures.
Talk of brownouts and blackouts has a lot to do with AEP/Allegheny's economic wants, but nothing to do with the electrical grid's needs. |
