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Final report from DOE Power Outage Study Team

  • From: Sean Donelan
  • Date: Thu Mar 16 21:28:42 2000 
How many of these statements could be applied to other interconnected
systems, such as the Internet.  Think about the outages last summer in
the power system which lead to this report.  What would a similar scope
of outages look like on the Internet?  Compare and contrast. You have
2 hours to complete this test :-)


>From the Department of Energy's Power Outage Study Team final report
on the Summer of 1999 power outages issued on Monday.

http://www.policy.energy.gov/electricity/postfinal.pdf

   "This change makes the current system of voluntary compliance with
reliability standards inadequate for ensuring reliability.  Mandatory
standards for bulk-power psystems are needed to ensure that the "rules
of the road" are implemented in a straightforward and balanced manner."


   "Many forums for exchanging information on "best practices" for
maintaining and operating electric generation, transmission and distribution
systems already exist.  However, concerns exist about the consistency of
some information (such as reliability indicies), the availability of data
to all industry stakeholders, and the continued viability of these forums
in a restructured industry.  The federal government could play an important
role in enhancing the definition, collection, and sharing of information."


   "Emergencies on bulk-power systems affect large geographic areas,
involve many stake holders, and affect millions of customers.  The events
of the summer of 1999 demonstrated that effective communication and
coordination among many parties are critical during times of system
emergencies.  The federal government should actively support efforts to
continually review and improve planning and response capabilities."


    "In view of the regional and national implications of power outages,
known and emerging electric system vulnerabilties need to be studied
from a national rather than local perspective.  Studies from a national
perspective uniquely belong to the federal government, but studies must
be carried out in close partnership with the electric industry."