IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - January/February 2014 - 31

The old cliché "expect the unexpected"
is certainly applicable to a system
restoration effort.

and distribution personnel and a conference call at 5:15 p.m. on
14 August to determine initial actions. After assessing the state
of the transmission system and identifying the affected area,
all of the breakers within that area were opened as preparation
for restoration. the 138-kV network was restored by 7:25 p.m.
subsequently, the remaining 46-kV lines and customer load
were restored; this work was completed by 10:05 p.m.
the area that was restored was fed by three 138-kV lines.
One of the lines (Leoni-Beecher) tripped at 10:30 p.m. and did
not reclose. the power increase on the other two lines caused
them to trip as well, blacking out the area that had just been
restored. A second restoration commenced quickly, bringing the
138-kV network back up by 12:55 a.m. on 15 August and the
46-kV network, with all customer load, by 1:35 a.m. A fault
location was identified from relay data, but a cause for the fault
was not found at the indicated location. the line was given a
derated capability when it was reclosed at 11:00 p.m. Because
of the limitations of the system caused by the derating, 40 mW
of load, served by four 46-kV lines, was manually shed between
7 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. on 15 August; the lines were restored when
a Whiting generator came back online.
the initial attempt to return the campbell 3 unit to service failed due to water hammer that developed after steam
was turned back on. the water hammer damaged a number
of piping hangers, delaying the unit's return to service.

Cleveland
the authors could not find any publicly available, comprehensive reports on the restoration process in the cleveland area.
A summary of the restoration in the region of the east central Area reliability coordination Agreement (ecAr), which
includes northern Ohio and southern michigan, is provided
from the ecAr final report dated 7 July 2004. in the region,
18,047 mW of load, 18,811 mW of generation, and 238

transmission circuits were lost. All load was restored by 9:00
a.m. on 16 August. restoration of 100% of the load took one
day and 17 hours. the restoration strategy consisted of restoration of load from energized transmission lines and the use of
black-start units not in black-start mode. these gas turbines
were capable of black starting, but were not used in this mode.
these units can be started up very quickly to help restore load.
throughout the restoration, operators needed to be sure that
transfers from American electric Power (AeP) to michigan
did not overload the Firstenergy transmission system in northern Ohio. restoration of power to off-site nuclear power plant
supply and to other generation resources off-line as a result of
the blackout was a priority. communications and fuel supply
to critical infrastructure were major issues during the blackout restoration effort. the need to more effectively share restoration plans among reliability coordinators, transmission
operators, and generation operators was identified. ecAr also
identified the need for additional training and regular drills for
blackout restoration.

Restoration Summary
the times to restore substantial and 100% load for the various regions affected by the blackout are given in table 1.

Lessons Learned
A general pattern for sound restoration can be inferred from
these examples. restoration commences by first assessing
the current state of the system. then a skeletal high-voltage
network is reassembled, providing a cranking path for generation, followed by the gradual connection of lower-voltage
facilities and customer load. Of course, the process is not
quite this simple. some load is needed on the system throughout the restoration process in order to maintain voltage stability; otherwise, voltages become excessively high, to the point

table 1. Time to restore substantial and 100% load for the various regions affected,
as reported in publicly available documentation.
State or Province

Time to Restore Substantial Load

Time to Restore 100% Load

Michigan

15/8/2003 at 5:30 p.m.

15/8/2003, evening

New England

15/8/2003 at 1:35 a.m.

15/8/2003, end of day

New York

15/8/2003 at 4:00 a.m.

15/8/2003 at 10:30 p.m.

Ohio

15/8/2003 at 7:00 a.m. (Cleveland water pumps)

16/8/2003 at 7:00 a.m. (as reported by ECAR)

Ontario

Data not publicly available

15/8/2003, end of day

january/february 2014

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