Deregulation and Niagara Mohawk - Is There a Story?

It's just a few hours after the Northeast U.S. power outage, and facts are trickling in; as of right now, it looks like an accidental overload knocked out a large part of the Niagara Mohawk power grid. A few years ago, California went through rolling blackouts that were largely due to a poorly-executed deregulation of that state's power industry. The question that's probably occurring to many of us is, did late-'90s deregulation play a role in today's power event? I don't know the answer, so I'm turning it over to you -- moderators, please check links and up-mod the most informative, pro or con. Here is some information to get you started: "We support deregulation 100 percent..." (N-M spokesman, 1997; notes N-M wanted to sell generators and "concentrate on the transmission and distribution of energy" -- did it?); N-M made some bad investments and is scheduled to request a rate hike (did it?); and N-M's own website says: "Deregulation [has] changed the laws and regulations governing the electricity industry to promote competition..." (how so?).

Comments

I know what happened!!!

[nicotinix]

Running Windows, unpatched with the Blaster worm causes power outages!!!!!

What?!

[mobileskimo]

It's just a few hours after the Northeast U.S. power outage, and facts are trickling in; as of right now, it looks like an accidental overload knocked out a large part of the Niagara Mohawk power grid.

I follow you so far.

A few years ago, California went through rolling blackouts that were largely due to a poorly-executed deregulation of that state's power industry.

Uh-huh.

The question that's probably occurring to many of us is, did late-'90s deregulation play a role in today's power event?

It is?

I don't know the answer, so I'm turning it over to you -- moderators, please check links and up-mod the most informative, pro or con.

You don't know the answer, so you're turning it over to who? Slashdot readers? Moderators check links? Yes sir. I'll get on it right away, sir. Moderators mod the most informative? Oh I was thinking of modding the least informative up. Silly me.

Here is some information to get you started: "We support deregulation 100 percent..." (N-M spokesman, 1997; notes N-M wanted to sell generators and "concentrate on the transmission and distribution of energy" -- did it?);

I don't know Jamie, did it?

N-M made some bad investments and is scheduled to request a rate hike (did it?);

I don't know Jamie, did it?

and N-M's own website says: "Deregulation [has] changed the laws and regulations governing the electricity industry to promote competition..." (how so?).

I don't know Jamie, how?

I'll tell you what I'll go find out for you. You just sit tight and I'll send that right over to your fax in a jiffy. Umkay?

Re:DAMN!

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Sure I can answer that question. Shitty old SCADA technology combined with higher risks.

Shitty SCADA technology: the responsiveness of the control and monitoring systems is often very slow. Many seconds, by the time the data arrives at the control centres, the lines have tripped automatically. When shit happens you get many events (data overload) and knowing which ones to respond to is difficult. [Example: Three mile island: Each event gets logged to a printer. So many events were triggered that the printer was hacklogged three hours within a minute].

The mighty buck: to save money, the networks are run with less redundancy and at higher risk levels. This means that you lose control (time/space to respond) and the consequences of a failure are more ugly.