Engineering Ethics

2003: Northeast Blackout 171

APPLICABLE REGULATIONS

Seven violations of portions of four NERC policies were the root

causes of the blackout. These violations and policies are listed here. Note

that the exact sections of policies 5 and 9 have been renumbered since

the original blackout investigation because these two policies were

revised in 2004.

Violation 1: Following the outage of the Chamberline-Harding 345-kV

line, FE did not take the necessary actions to return the system to a

safe operating state within 30 minutes.

Policy 2, Section A, Standards 1 and 2:

1. Basic reliability requirement regarding single contingencies. All

CONTROL AREAS shall operate so that instability,

uncontrolled separation, or cascading outages will not occur as a

result of the most severe single contingency.

2. Return from OPERATING SECURITY LIMIT violation.

Following a contingency or other event that results in an

OPERATING SECURITY LIMIT violation, the CONTROL

AREA shall return its transmission system to within OPERATING

SECURITY LIMITS as soon as possible, but no longer than

30 minutes. (NERC Policy 2, 1998)

Violation 2: FE did not notify other systems of an impending system

emergency.

Policy 5, Section A, Requirement 4:

1. Information sharing. To facilitate emergency assistance, the

OPERATING AUTHORITY shall inform other potentially

affected OPERATING AUTHORITIES and its RELIABILITY

COORDINATOR of real time or anticipated emergency

conditions, and take actions to avoid when possible, or mitigate

the emergency. (NERC Policy 5, 2004)

Violation 3: FE’s state estimation/contingency analysis tools were not

used to assess the system conditions.

Policy 4, Section A, Requirement 5:

5. Monitoring. Monitoring equipment shall be used to bring to the

system operator’s attention important deviations in operating

conditions and to indicate, if appropriate, the need for corrective

action. (NERC Policy 4, 1998)

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172 Engineering Ethics: An Industrial Perspective

Violation 4: MISO did not notify other reliability coordinators of

potential problems.

Policy 9, Section E, Requirement 1.5:

1.5. Communication with RELIABILITY COORDINATORS of

potential problems. The RELIABILITY COORDINATOR who

foresees a transmission problem (such as loss of reactive reserves, etc.)

within its RELIABILITY COORDINATOR AREA shall issue an

alert to all CONTROL AREAS and TRANSMISSION OPERATING

ENTITIES in its RELIABILITY AREA, and all RELIABILITY

COORDINATORS within the INTERCONNECTION via the

Reliability Coordinator Information System without delay. The

RELIABILITY COORDINATOR will disseminate this information

to its OPERATING AUTHORITIES. (NERC Policy 9, 2004)

Violation 5: MISO was using non–real-time data to support real-time

operations.

Policy 9, Section E, Requirement 1.3:

1.3. Situational awareness. The RELIABILITY COORDINATOR

shall be continuously aware of conditions within its RELIABILITY

COORDINATOR AREA and include this information in its

reliability assessments. (NERC Policy 9, 2004)

Violation 6: PJM Interconnection and MISO as Reliability

Coordinators lacked procedures or guidelines between themselves

on when and how to coordinate an operating security limit violation

observed by one of them in the other’s area because of a contingency

near their common boundary.

Violation 6 was under the jurisdiction of Policy 9, which at the time of

the blackout was unspecific.

Violation 7: The monitoring equipment provided to FE operators was

not sufficient to bring the operators’ attention to the deviation on

the system (U.S.-Canada, 2004).

Policy 4, Section A, Requirements 1 and 5:

1. Resources. The system operator shall be kept informed of all

generation and transmission resources available for use.

5. Monitoring. Monitoring equipment shall be used to bring to the

system operator’s attention important deviations in operating

conditions and to indicate, if appropriate, the need for corrective

action. (NERC Policy 4, 1998)

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