WESTERN BLACKOUT AVOIDABLE : STATES NOT NOTIFIED OF OREGON OUTAGE.Byline: Bloomberg Business News This month's mammoth Western power blackout A complete loss of power. See brownout. could have been avoided if Western utilities were told of an outage out·age n. 1. A quantity or portion of something lacking after delivery or storage. 2. A temporary suspension of operation, especially of electric power. in Oregon, which happened more than an hour before it spread to other states, utility officials said. California utility executives said they would have tapped reserve power supplies if they had been told by the Bonneville Power Administration The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) is a U.S. self-financed federal agency which transmits and sells wholesale electricity in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and western Montana. The BPA is part of the U.S. Department of Energy, and is headquartered in Portland, Oregon. about a malfunction mal·func·tion v. 1. To fail to function. 2. To function improperly. n. 1. Failure to function. 2. Faulty or abnormal functioning. that led to the failure of the Pacific Intertie, which carries power to California and other states. ``We would have brought on line our nonoperating reserves,'' James Macias, general manager of electric transmission for Pacific Gas & Electric Co., told members of the California Public Utilities Commission The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC; also often commonly referred to as simply the PUC) [1] is a state Public Utilities Commission which regulates privately-owned utilities in the state of California, including electric power, at a Wednesday hearing. The Aug. 10 blackout affected more than 4 million customers in nine states. An earlier blackout July 2 cut power to 2 million customers in 14 states. Local power outages This is a list of famous wide-scale power outages. 1965
Bonneville officials said at the hearing that the initial problem didn't appear to be significant. The blackout started when high-voltage lines drooped and touched trees, sparking a short-circuit that spread in a chain-reaction through the system. ``Whether the dispatcher's judgment (not to notify other utilities) was correct or not is one of the issues we're looking at,'' said Bonneville Chief Executive Officer Randy Hardy. |
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