The Northeast Blackout, Ten Years Later

(Disclaiming reminder, here: I speak for myself in this post and for no one else. This is neither sanctioned nor sponsored by my employer.)

Image credit: The Earth Institute, Columbia University

Ten years ago today, a large part of the Northeastern and Midwestern USA (yes, including New York City) plus much of Ontario went dark. I remember sitting with my dad from a hotel room in St. Louis and watching as the news broke; we were waiting to move in for my freshman year of college. Little did I know that ten years later I would find myself in New York* working in Electric Reliability. Had I not been involved in a meeting all day long today, I'd have been eagerly checking out the news and retrospectives as they rolled in.

*Okay, I'm writing this from a hotel room in Halifax, but... you get the picture. 

I don't know of a way to quantify how much more reliable the entire electric system is today versus ten years ago (goodness knows people are trying their damnedest to do just this); from my few years' experience in the industry and as a member of the electric reliability regulatory function, I do know that much or most of the Little Things that added up to One Giant Thing, ten years ago, have certainly been swept up. People are thinking about reliability more creatively and are encouraged to consider scenarios that may have been waved off or assigned not-high-enough a priority before. And frankly, reliability is the top priority today; although every region of the country has experienced reliability events or minor blackouts of some kind since August 14, 2003, I believe that heightened vigilance and ever-more comprehensive industry-standard controls will limit the effects of any events in this decade and beyond to a much more tightly constrained scale than in 2003.

I'll post links to news articles (and hopefully, the good ones) about this decade anniversary here throughout the weekend:

• Scientific American - Is the U.S. Grid Better Prepared to Prevent a Repeat of the 2003 Blackout?
• NPR - 10 Years After The Blackout, How Has The Power Grid Changed?
• CBC - 10 years after blackout, grid is more reliable but still vulnerable
• NERC Statement on Blackout Anniversary
• NYTimes - New Tools for Keeping the Lights On