Brush Fire Forces Southern California Power Outage; Automatic Load-Shedding Prevents Wider Outage.News Editors/Energy Writers A brushfire brush·fire also brush fire n. 1. A fire in low-growing, scrubby trees and brush. 2. A relatively minor crisis. adj. along Interstate 15 in the Cajon Pass At an elevation of 1,277 meters (4,190 ft.) the Cajon Pass (IPA: [kə'hoʊn 'pæs]) is a moderate-elevation mountain pass between the San Bernardino Mountains and the San Gabriel Mountains in Southern California in the United States. that began as a car-fire resulted in a wide-spread, but short-lived power outage Noun 1. power outage - equipment failure resulting when the supply of power fails; "the ice storm caused a power outage" power failure equipment failure, breakdown - a cessation of normal operation; "there was a power breakdown" in Southern California Southern California, also colloquially known as SoCal, is the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Centered on the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego, Southern California is home to nearly 24 million people and is the nation's second most populated region, Wednesday evening at about 6:15 p.m. The outage was triggered when heavy smoke forced three 500 kilovolt kilovolt (kil´  vōlt),n the unit of electrical potential equal to 1000 volts. transmission lines to "relay" or trip off line. Automatic equipment sensed the loss of that power flow, and reacted instantly to protect equipment elsewhere on the transmission system. The result was a loss of 1,450 megawatts in Southern California Edison's service territory, representing approximately 460,000 customers. The California Independent System Operator (ISO (1) See ISO speed. (2) (International Organization for Standardization, Geneva, Switzerland, www.iso.ch) An organization that sets international standards, founded in 1946. The U.S. member body is ANSI. ) immediately responded by ordering more generation on line to meet the loss. Working with Southern California Edison Southern California Edison (or SCE Corp), the largest subsidiary of Edison International (NYSE: EIX), is the primary electricity supply company for much of Southern California. It provides 11 million people with electricity. , power for some customers was restored after just seven minutes. Almost all customers were back in service by 7:00 p.m. with final restoration achieved by 8:00 p.m. The three power lines that tripped off line, Lugo-Serrano and Lugo-Mira Loma 1 and 2, remain out of service Wednesday night, and it is unclear when they can be put back into service. The ISO has issued a restricted maintenance order for Southern California that's in effect through midnight, Thursday, June 27. This is simply a request to transmission and generator owners not to do any maintenance on their facilities that could result in them tripping off line. The California ISO is a not-for-profit public benefit corporation charged with managing the flow of electricity along California's open-market wholesale power grid. The mission of the California ISO is to safeguard the reliable delivery of electricity, and ensure equal access to a 25,000 circuit miles of "electron highway". As the impartial operator of the wholesale power grid in the state, the California ISO conducts a small portion of the bulk power markets. These markets are used to allocate space on the transmission lines, maintain operating reserves and match supply with demand in real time. |
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