North American Network Operators Group
Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical

Re: Cascading Failures Could Crash the Global Internet

  • From: N. Richard Solis
  • Date: Thu Feb 06 16:11:32 2003
I don't know of too many electrical distribution networks that use DC interconnection to limit AC failures from propogating.

The main cause of AC disruption is a power plant getting out of phase with the rest of the power plants on the grid.  When that happens, the plant "trips" of goes off-line to protect the entire grid.  You lose some generating capacity but you dont fry everything on the network either.

http://www.nerc.com/

There are some states that operate their own grids.  Texas, for example.

-Richard


Sean Donelan wrote:



Sigh, there are differences between tightly coupled networks, such as
the electric power grid and loosely couple networks like the Internet.
But there are also some similarities, such as electric grids use DC
interconnections to limit how far AC disturbances propagate; the
Internet uses AS interconnections to limit IGP disturbances from
propagating.

http://sci.newsfactor.com/perl/story/20686.html

The actual article requires payment to read
http://ojps.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?prog=normal&id=PLEEE8000066000006065102000001&idtype=cvips&gifs=Yes