IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - May/June 2017 - 89

england, remained connected to the
grid, but the hydro plants at niagara
and St. Lawrence were no longer supplying power into this area, so a large
surge of electricity from the south and
west (the so-called "inertial response")
entered new York from Pennsylvania
and new Jersey. that surge caused instability between new York/new england and the rest of the eastern interconnection, and the next step occurred
when the lines between Pennsylvania
and new York were lost.
the northeast's final link to the
grid was broken when circuit breakers opened at a substation in brooklyn.
most of eastern new York and new
england were now isolated from the
main grid, in effect an electrical island,
and there was a large disparity between
its electrical demand and the remaining generating capacity. this imbalance caused the generators to slow
down and the frequency of the system
to decline, leading inevitably to a total
system shutdown and blackout.

the bulk power system breakup occurred in about 10 s from the time the
first line in Ontario tripped until the
last major transmission line opened,
but it took about 10 min for the lights
to go out in some of the electrical islands. in those areas that had been importing power prior to the disturbance,
including new York City, frequency
declined below 60 hz. Any time generation on an electrical interconnection
declines below the connected demand,
generators slow down as the potential
energy of their spinning rotors is converted into kinetic (electric) energy.
Power systems cannot operate for long
at frequencies even fractionally off the
standard (60 hz in north America), so
the remaining generators began to trip
out, causing the frequency to decline
even further. it was a downward spiral
until the whole system shut down, and
power went off everywhere, including
on my f train.
ironically, the lights never went
out in two portions of new York City;

Staten island and the southwestern corner of brooklyn remained connected to
the eastern interconnection through a
single transmission line that spanned
the Arthur Kill between Staten island
and new Jersey.
Over the next few weeks and months,
many stories circulated about what
caused the great northeast blackout.
there were the usual conspiracy theories, of course. in one rather fanciful
account, an unidentified flying object
had allegedly been observed "draining
power" from a high-voltage transmission line in upstate new York.
for years, more than a few magazine and newspaper articles erroneously claimed that the true cause of the
blackout had never been determined. in
fact, the cause was revealed by the very
system where it began. About a week
after the occurrence, Ontario hydro
officials announced that they had conducted an internal investigation and
determined that it had begun in their
own system, as described above. this

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - May/June 2017