The American Electric Grid – from Virtual to Real

Here we go again! There are times when explaining the status of the American energy systems seems like fiction touched with a little wizardry. Small wonder because even some experts are convinced that some things are true when they really aren’t.

I guess we better explain that! Perhaps a National Public Radio (NPR) report said it best: “The U.S electric grid is a complex network of independently owned and operated power plants and transmission lines.” The operative word is “independently.”

And the bottom line is there is no single US electric grid.

What is additionally bothersome is that some transmission lines, whose function is to connect the power supplies to the consumers, are, in NPRs words “Aging.”

In fact the entire infrastructure is in such a state of poor health that the increase in demand and rise in domestic electricity consumption has forced utility and government experts to proceed with the deepest critical examination to determine current status of the entire spectrum of the American electrical systems.

So the “American grid” is actually a collection of smaller grids comprised of thirteen groups of states each with its own set of interconnections. Canada has a similar collection of five groups of provinces with grids established within each.

The small state grids, called “Coordination Councils” (CCs) are connected to neighboring CCs and thus an accepted theory is that through these connections power could be sent from Maine to California.

The fact is that any power generated in Maine and sent toward California would be gobbled up by any one of the hungry CCs between “here and there.”

We have seen a number of blackouts through the years. Some of them have been very serious: 1965, 1977 and 2003 just to mention a few. The terrible news was that after each of these “grid failures” we, the American People, have been told that nothing has been done to prevent further failures! - And so they continue.

Our representatives need to study and cure (1) the existing electrical system defects and shortages, (2) the persons and organizations responsible for use, maintenance and growth of the systems, (3) Areas of conflict of interest involving public utility ownership of parts of the “grids” and (4) conflict between local, state and federal laws (supposedly) controlling the power supply and transmission systems so essential to human health and safety.

Next – let’s look at what the Pols have done so far!

Protecting the Real Grid

The real “grid” in the United States – the interconnection of the various sources of electricity with the ultimate consumer – is in reality a number of grids connecting thirteen groups of utilities in the United States with five area groups in Canada.

All of these energy sources are divided into three major groups: The Eastern Interconnect (EI), the Western Interconnect (WI) and the Energy Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT).
The WI is comprised of the eleven western states as a single group plus 2 western Canadian Provinces.

The EI is made up of the 37 “eastern” states divided into eleven individual groups of three or four states each and 5 Canadian “eastern” Provinces.

ERCOT covers approximately 70% of the state of Texas.

All of these energy production operations are connected to transmission systems (and ISOs) that deliver power from points of generation to end user. Contrary to popular belief however, there is no direct line from, say New York to California: a kilowatt-hour sent on that path would have to pass through at least five American groups or three Canadian groups to get to the WI where California is located.

There are a number of transmission companies that provide the pathways for power delivery. According to industry experts, each transmission company manages its own systems, and has its own tools for management. Individually they are vulnerable and each one could potentially impact its upstream or downstream neighbors (see 1965 and 2003 “Blackouts”) but there is no single system that could be hacked in order to shut down all the grids at once. To do that, hackers would have to hit a number of systems at the same time.

As we pointed out in our previous blog, “The Nitty Gritty of the Grid” the many North American blackouts of the past 20 years have needed no help from hackers. But we do know that the government, and the Supreme Court, are taking strong action to better control and cleanse the entire use of energy in the United States.

Oh, and let’s not forget where hacking was invented. We have highly detailed charts of the Chinese, Russian, Korea – and the rest of the worlds – grid systems with their interconnections and distributions.

The Nitty-Gritty of the Grid

There are times when news reports can scare the living daylights out of you. Like the recent one that says that Chinese and Russian hackers have invaded the US electricity grid and are ready to shut it down in the event of a war.

Well, first of all, there is no single American grid worthy of the name! It has been the continuing concern of energy experts that rules put into effect with the start of deregulation have ignored the physics of the grid.

Former utility executive, John A. Casazza and many other experts have stated that the key error in the new rules was to view electricity as a commodity rather than as an essential service.

Commodities can be shipped from point A through point B to point C, but power shifts affect the entire single machine system (the “national grid”). As a result, increased long-distance trading of electric power would create dangerous levels of congestion on transmission lines where controllers did not expect them and could not deal with them.”

This gets worse when independent producers go on line from random locations determined by economics rather than physics.

CHEER UP: guess what we have? The grid connections in CHINA: the interconnections both AC and DC between the Northeast, North China, East China, Central China, South China and Tibet. We know the sizes, voltages, frequency and interconnections. Hello!

And furthermore, we have analyzed the impact of the electricity grid connection between, - are you ready?- JAPAN and KOREA – on the potential energy network in Northeast Asia (where China is already active).

Returning to our own backyard, it would not be incorrect to say that we haven’t needed hackers to shut down major portions of our “grid.”

In addition to the “big blackouts” of 2003 and 1965, in 1974 a million Canadians lost power; 1977 the famous NYC blackout; 1989 a geomagnetic storm caused Hydro-Quebec to leave 6 million people in the dark for 9 hours; 1991, a powerful windstorm caused power failure affecting 1 million customers from Iowa to Ontario; 1995 A hurricane called Opal killed 59 people and shut down power to 2 million customers across eastern and southern North America; 1996, the Western Intertie (grid) buckled under high summer heat and the resulting cascading power failure hit nine western states and parts of Mexico – 4 million customers without power.

There were many more:
1996 -2 more: Washington, Idaho power out up to 2 weeks
1998-3: California, Central US 4 Million
2000-1; 12 months of regular failures California
2003-3: including the Big One-50 Million
2004: 5 Million, Florida
2005-6; 1.3 Million FL, ½ Million St Louis, Long Island NY
2006-6; Ontario, Delaware, Quebec, Buffalo, Southern Louisiana
2007-5: Missouri, Texas to Atlantic Canada, NYC, ½ Long Island NY Oklahoma to Nebraska over 1 Million
2008-8: California, Quebec, Calgary, Miami, Hurricane Ike 7.5 Million TX to NY
2009-2 : so far – Kentucky, Toronto Hydro

MR PRESIDENT – THIS NEEDS IMMEDIATE ATTENTION –
NOT BECAUSE OF SPIES
BUT BECAUSE OF OUR OWN BUILT-IN WEAKNESSES.