Outage 2^nd Day Talking Points - TVA

August 15, 2003

·        On August 14, at 4:11 p.m. EDT , the Northeastern U.S. and southern Canada suffered one of the worst blackouts in recent history. 

·        Areas affected extended from New York , Massachusetts and New Jersey west to Michigan , and from Ohio north to Toronto and Ottawa Ontario . 

·        The TVA region and surrounding areas in the Southeast did not experience blackouts, but it was necessary for TVA operators to take actions to stabilize TVA’s generators and prevent voltage fluctuations.

-       transmission systems in the eastern United States and Canada are linked into one large grid and problems anywhere on the grid can affect systems hundreds of miles away

-       whenever there is a sudden loss of demand on the system—as when a power line fails and customers are separated from the grid—generators immediately must be brought into balance with the suddenly reduced demand or the result can be additional cascading outages and major damage to the generators

-       TVA was able stabilize the system without incident

·        TVA Transmission/Power Supply personnel worked through the night to return a key transmission line to service to ensure that TVA’s system is as strong as possible in the aftermath of the Northeast outages.

·        TVA has delivered power to customers with 99.999 percent reliability for the last three years.

·        Nationally, utility and reliability managers are still trying to determine the cause of the outage—the leading theory is the loss of one or more over-burdened transmission lines in the Midwest —a terrorist attack is not suspected.

·        According to the National Electric Reliability Council and other published sources:

-       Almost 62,000 megawatts (MW) of electrical demand—or load—were lost within a few minutes (a megawatt is one million watts—enough to power to light __ homes

-       New York was the area hardest hit, losing over 24,400 MW, followed by Ontario , Canada (21,000 MW) and the southern Great Lakes area (18,500 MW)

-       Nine U.S. nuclear generating units, several Canadian nuclear units and numerous coal-fired plants were forced to shut down; most of the coal plants have been returned to service, but some of the nuclear units may be off for days

-       As of 9 a.m. August 15, about 48,600 MW have been restored, although rolling blackouts are still be experienced in many recovering areas.

·        Major recovery work involves repairing damaged transmission and distribution lines, checking equipment and bringing power plants back on line; full recovery is expected by early next week.

·        While the causes of this outage are still unknown, a “perfect storm” for major grid problems has been brewing for several years.

-       Demand for electricity has been growing nationwide by about two percent per year and much faster in high-growth areas

-       Independent power producers and some utilities have spent billions of dollars to build dozens of new power plants over the past few years to serve the growing demand and take advantage of higher wholesale prices during times of extreme power demand

-       Often, generating plants have been built with little thought about the grid’s ability to handle the extra power and without commitments to build new transmission to move the new generation to market

-       As power from the new generators is shipped hundreds of miles over the transmission network to distant customers, it is forcing the grid to operate in ways for which it was never designed

-       As the existing grid strains to handle this additional burden, new transmission lines and substations have not been built fast enough to handle the thousands of additional megawatts being forced into the system

·        TVA has been monitoring these issues for several years and has taken actions to prevent problems from occurring in the region:

-       Over the past seven years, TVA has built 986 miles of new transmission line and 204 new power delivery points to strengthen the grid in the seven-state TVA region

-       TVA cooperates with companies that wish to attach new generators to the TVA grid, but we ensure that adequate transmission is available to preserve reliability

-       TVA has entered into agreements with neighboring transmission providers to coordinate transmission service and planning on a widespread regional basis (MOUs with MISO, Entergy, Southern and PJM).

-       TVA is pursuing a leadership role in applying the latest advances in technology and material science to transmission problems, including power lines that can carry more electricity, devices that can protect voltage and switches that react instantly to problems on the grid

·        TVA takes a measured and flexible approach to industry changes with a strong emphasis on protecting reliability and serving the power supply needs of the seven-state TVA region.

·        Despite TVA’s best efforts, the grid is still only as strong as its weakest link; it will still be vulnerable to outages and problems like those of August 14 until there is a national commitment to strengthen the nation’s vital transmission infrastructure to allow power to be moved longer distances.

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