Ruralite - October 2003
A newsletter for customers of Klickitat PUD

On August 14, 2003, the power grid collapsed and a large swath of eastern North America went dark. The outage began with a failure in the Midwest that cascaded into Canada, and into New York. Since then, people have been wondering "could it happen here?"

The power grid is a highly interconnected electric system. It consists of hundreds of critical components, and the top priority of each component is not to keep the lights on, but to protect itself from overload. When transmission lines or power plants shut down, the system is designed to "shed load". This turns off the power supply to some areas, to balance the amount of power being generated with the amount being used. However, this can't happen instantaneously, so if lines trip off very quickly, the overloads may just move to the next line, causing a cascading failure.

The last time the west had a major outage was an August 10, 1996 outage resulting from a combination of triple digit heat, very high-energy demands, and equipment failures causing overloads that led to transmission lines sagging into trees. It turned out the lights for seven million people in California and parts of other Western states.

The Western electrical grid fundamentally differs from the transmission system in the Northeast. The Northwest system and the West Coast are characterized by cities separated from each other, and from generators, by vast stretches of mountains, plains and deserts. The Northwest system also relies on hydropower, which can sustain wide fluctuations and can ramp up from zero to full generation in seconds. This means that the system is inherently more stable. The Department of Energy noted that hydro projects were the first generators to come online after the blackout, and played a major role in restoring electricity to the New York grid. That is good news for our region and for Klickitat County specifically.

So how does Klickitat County fit into all of this? Klickitat County is fed from two different areas. The western end is integrated into both Pacific Power & Light's system that feeds Hood River and the Bonneville Power Administration's system out of Bonneville dam. The PP&L system is older and less susceptible to fluctuations. Condit Dam is a prime example. It has the ability to ride through wider variations and stay online. There have been times when this system has "islanded"- separated from the grid - and kept on generating, keeping our lights on. The center of Klickitat County is fed from The Dalles area and is directly connected to The Dalles Dam. Again, with this hydro resource more able to withstand fluctuations, we have been fortunate. We islanded in the 1996 outage and did not participate in the outage. All in all, we are in better shape than most. We are near generation. It is hydro-based, and if there were another event that affected us, we would be one of the first areas to be restored to service.

Tom D. Svendsen P.E., Power Manger