Inpo: a Good Model for Blackout Fix
Aug 28 - Power Engineering
A year after the blackout of 2003 knocked out 62 GW of load in seven states for as long as four days, the industry is still struggling for a fix. The major accomplishment ' so far is a government report that blames the whole thing on a transmission line in Ohio sagging into a tree. That's OK for public consumption, but everyone in the industry knows the problems go a lot deeper. Significantly reducing the probability of another multi-state, cascading blackout is going to be difficult.
The investigation into TMI showed the nuclear industry it had fundamental
problems not limited to one company or one valve design and that it needed to
make some serious changes. To its credit, the nuclear power community honestly
acknowledged those problems and took action. A lot of things changed. The
Nuclear Regulatory Commission got a lot tougher with operating reactors. Many
utilities cleaned up their own houses.
The most interesting development, and the most applicable to today's
transmission problems, was the creation of the Institute of Nuclear Power
Operations. INPO was created to be a utility self- policing operation aimed at
improving reactor performance. Still in operaton today, it sets performance
criteria, evaluates individual plant performance, and judges the results. These
ratings are not publicized, but the insiders know who's letting down the
industry and they don't tolerate it. The financial stakes are too large. In a
few cases critical INPO ratings have been leaked to the public to the extreme
embarrassment of utility managements.
Since the creation of INPO and the other steps taken in the aftermath of TMI,
the improvement in U.S. nuclear power plant performance has been impressive.
There has been no serious accident since 1979. Average capacity factor is now
90%, almost twice what it was. The rate of significant equipment malfunctions is
one thirtieth what it was, at a miniscule 0.03 events per reactor per year.
That's not to say there have been no serious problems at nuclear plants.
Davis Besse just restarted after a two year shutdown due to a deep
corrosion-caused hole in the reactor vessel head. Ironically, Davis Besse is
owned by First Energy, same utility that owns the transmission line that sagged
into the tree, starting the blackout. But there was no accident at the nuclear
plant. They found the problem in time and it was fixed. The lesson was shared
with everyone else.
I don't mean to imply that the transmission community is blind to the INPO
model. At the recent Edison Electric Institute annual meeting, Michehl Gent,
president of the North American Electric Reliability Council, reported that NERC
is working on INPO-like training standards for transmission system operators.
NERC is a utility-run, self-policing agency somewhat similar to INPO, but not as
active. NERC makes "policy statements" for transmission control area
operation, but does not enforce them. In fact, NERC appears to tacitly admit
that its transmission operating policies were not being followed. Its assessment
of bulk electricity supply for this summer says, "If all entities comply
with NERC reliability standards, there should be no uncontrolled
blackouts." Since the blackout, NERC has campaigned to make its policies
mandatory, but as we all know, Congress has failed to act. Since NERC is
voluntarily financed by utilities at present, it may not be the ideal
enforcement agency unless the finance model is changed. Some form of mandatory
operating standards and enforcement is clearly needed.
Another EEI speaker, a utility CEO, said that transmission system operators
must have the authority to drop load to maintain system stability without having
to get anyone else's approval. That's a bold move and lot of responsibility to
give one person, but the alternative is worse. He noted that last year one of
his company's operators dropped 500 MW of load on his own for two hours and
prevented a larger, longer term outage.
In the wake of the TMI nuclear accident the federal government authorized an
independent group to investigate and report on it. The resulting Kemeny
Commission Report was blunt, forceful, and excrutiatingly embarrassing to many
parties. It named names. It identified the initiating event, but went way past
that. It ruthlessly exposed deep-rooted problems in the nuclear industry,
particularly the "cover up any bad news" mentality that got in the way
of sharing experiences and lessons learned. That report was instrumental in the
creation of new institutions like INPO and revamping existing ones like the NRC.
I hope we don't need more large-scale blackouts and a painful investigation
to stimulate needed changes in our transmission system design and operations.
And I hope that Power Engineering's readers don't get too comfortable because
this problem is on the transmission side of the industry. The blackout caused
chaos in power plant operations. Worse, there are those who say the blackout was
aggravated by power plant managers who were too quick to take their units
offline. You're part of this, too.
Editor's Note: Power Engineering proudly welcomes Will McNamara to the
masthead as a Contributing Editor. Will is widely recognized as a leading energy
industry trending analyst. Since 2002, he has managed Sempra Energy's state
legislative and regulatory affairs. Prior to joining Sempra, Will served as
director of energy industry analysis for SCIENTECH, Inc. where he gained
national recognition due in large part to his daily column, IssueAlert, in which
he analyzed and provided commentary on emerging energy issues.
I am certain the insight Will provides in his articles-starting this month
with a feature on emissions trading - will benefit you greatly.
-Brian Schimmoller, Managing Editor
ROBERT SMOCK, VICE PRESIDENT AND GROUP PUBLISHING DIRECTOR, GLOBAL ENERGY
GROUP
Copyright PennWell Publishing Company Aug 2004