Simulation of the September 8, 2011, San Diego blackout

Abstract

The development of predictive tools for emergency management has recently become a subject of major consideration among emergency responders, especially at the federal level. Often the news of an impending high-consequence threat causes significant stress on these agencies because of their inability to apprise management of probable impacts with sufficient certainty. This paper documents Argonne National Laboratory's effort to demonstrate the predictive capability of its newly enhanced tool called EPfast in estimating the impacts of postulated events on our power system. Specifically, the study focuses on EPfast's ability to estimate power outage areas resulting from random system contingencies. The San Diego September 8, 2011, blackout that affected most of southern California was selected for simulation using EPfast. Results showed agreement with actual reported impacts in both spatial and quantitative terms. The method, assumptions, and data used are presented here, and results showing their potential application to emergency planning are discussed.

A Survey on Power System Blackout and Cascading Events: Research Motivations and Challenges

“…As of 2010, several power systems blackouts have occurred, which left millions of customers stranded for hours. For instance, a power outage occurred in the Pacific Southwest on 8 September 2011, which lasted for about 12 h affecting 2.7 million residents of San Diego, California, Arizona and Mexico [35][36][37]. In this event, tripping of a major transmission line during peak load led to the system collapse.…”

“…In this event, tripping of a major transmission line during peak load led to the system collapse. During that time, San Diego experienced a total blackout and simulations in [35] showed that insufficient load shedding led to the cascading effects. Earlier in the same year on 4 February 2011, power system blackout occurred in Brazil due to flaws in the transmission lines and it lasted for about 16 h [38].…”

Discrete time optimal control and its applications in power systems

“…For instance, on August 14, 2003, US and Canada experienced a wide-area blackout that affected around 50 million people and caused a loss of about 10 billion U.S. dollars [6]. On September 8, 2011, the cascading blackout occurred in the Pacific Southwest, resulting in approximately 2.7 million people with no access to power [7].…”