Reliability Standards Fail Test And Investigators Ask Why
A system designed after an unprecedented 1965 blackout to assure electric reliability worked reasonably well for 37 years. On Aug. 14, it failed. As the lights came back on, officials already were probing the Northeast Blackout of 2003 and reliability again was becoming a key national priority.
The North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) was established after the 1965 Northeast blackout as a voluntary association of utilities. Members agree to follow common procedures to prevent cascading failures. "Either somebody broke the rules or we dont have the right rules in place," says Michehl Gent, NERC president. The cascade of outages across the regions worries him. "Thats not the way its supposed to happen."