Power Grid Failures
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Some notable power grid failures:
North American Blackout
The blackout’s proximate cause was a software bug in the alarm system at the control room of FirstEnergy, which rendered operators unaware of the need to redistribute load after overloaded transmission lines drooped into foliage. What should have been a manageable local blackout cascaded into the collapse of much of the Northeast regional electricity distribution system.
India’s 2012 Blackout
In general, utilities appeared to have invested little in blackout prevention, or done so pro forma. Power dispatch centers had insufficient monitoring tools to manage power flows, and used unreliable cell phone services to communicate with power plant control centers.[15]: 35, 37–39, 46, 62 Any islanding schemes appeared nonfunctional.[15]: 36–37 Power stations appeared to have had adequate generation capacity to avoid the blackouts, but had (contrary to regulations) not implemented droop speed control on their governors, or set it aggressively enough