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Jonathan Bachman / Reuters
The Superdome field in partial darkness the NFL Super Bowl XLVII in New Orleans, Sunday.
While the reasons for the 34-minute power outage during Sunday’s Super Bowl remain largely unknown, advocates for a smarter energy grid say it is the latest example of why the nation needs desperately to invest in its electricity infrastructure.
The blackout in New Orleans, coupled with the recent prolonged outages in New York and New Jersey caused by Hurricane Sandy, have put on display for the world how vulnerable America can be to losing its lights. Experts say it is a vulnerability that could have potentially crippling effects.
“The grid has all these parts where accidents can occur, and many accidents have the potential to create widespread problems,” said Susan Tierney, co-author of a National Research Council report that details the flaws in how the country gets its power.
She likened it to the nation’s interstate system, with main arteries and smaller back roads, so interconnected that a problem is rarely isolated.
The National Research Council report, completed in 2007 but declassified by the Department of Homeland Security last November, warns that a coordinated strike on the electric grid could have devastating effects on the American economy and psyche.
The non-partisan report said: "If carried out in a carefully planned way, by people who knew what they were doing, such an attack could deny large regions of the country access to bulk system power for weeks or even months. An event of this magnitude and duration could lead to turmoil, widespread public fear, and an image of helplessness that would play directly into the hands of the terrorists.”
Along with the physical damage and darkness, an attack on the nation’s electrical grid could cause, the biggest impact could be devastating financially, according to Tierney.
“Almost every aspect of our economy is touched by electricity, from banking to hospitals to world markets,” she said. “The worst case scenario could be devastating.”
Aging infrastructure
Like the roads and bridges that make up America’s physical infrastructure, its electrical infrastructure is getting more ancient.
And University of Minnesota Professor Massoud Amin, an expert on the U.S. electrical grid, said our increasingly digital society is only causing more strain.
“You’re dealing with an aging infrastructure that is not made for this century’s demands,” he said.
Amin’s research shows America’s problems with electricity are getting worse. There were 149 power outages that affected at least 50,000 from 2000-2004, a number that rose to 349 from 2005-2009.
Though questions surround what exactly caused the lights to go out in the Big Easy, Amin said he believes a smarter grid would have prevented the incident.
He advocates for a self-healing infrastructure that can communicate when problems arise, anticipate potential issues and isolate the area where the problem arises.
While energy experts and politicians on both sides of the aisle agree something needs to be done, little has been.
The U.S. is quickly falling behind European countries in terms of its energy reliability, according to John Kelly, executive director of Galvin Power Initiative, which compares the energy reliability of countries around the world. [PDF link]
“We’re not improving right now,” said Kelly.
The reason, both Amin and Tierney agree, comes down to unwillingness in both the public and private sector to put in the cash.
To create a smarter grid, money must go into things like research and development, security systems and standardizing equipment to allow defective parts to quickly be swapped out.
Cost savings
With an increasing number of weather-related catastrophes that some have attributed to climate change, time is an even more pressing issue. Money is being spent repairing old electrical lines instead of on new technologies.
A national smart grid could cost up between $338 billion to $476 billion over the next 20 years, according to a 2011 study by the Electric Power Research Institute.
“There is a lot of uncertainty, a lot of stake holders and some major concerns about return on investment,” said Amin. “Filling potholes and putting money into education is seen as a better investment than electric.”
But the director of the University of Minnesota’s Technological Leadership Institute added that much of the investment has been stifled because, by-and-large, Americans are happy with their electrical service.
“It’s not to say the sky is falling,” said Amin. “When these things happen they bother us. The problem we should worry about is when they become more than just a bother.”
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This is all old news.
These are things that shoulda / coulda been worked on for a long time now. It's surprising to hear that there has been little progress made in this area and very discouraging. Why has this been on the back burner???
It's more fun and profitable to fight a war!
Probably because it would require nationalizing the power grid.
Maybe the stadium was 100 precent under its own power from generators, in which this article has nothing to do with the black out / smart grid argument.
There are lots of reasons that this has been on the back burner. Building a smart grid is an intricate and complicated effort, involving a great many players (government and commercial). It's also expensive - which is its own challenge.
Because building a smart grid helps incorporate renewable energy, you have some entrenched fossil-fuel players who use their influence to block progress.
Fortunately, progress is being made - but in small steps. US News & World Reports lists 10 cities that are deploying smart grid test pilots - http://www.usnews.com/news/energy/slideshows/10-cities-adopting-smart-grid-technology/2
Hopefully what we learn here will help pave the way for greater deployment. I hope sooner rather than later - as there are lots of jobs to be had and lots of wealth to be built by doing this.
These blackouts and downed grids would give the "enemy" a good opening to attack America.
Yessss, Smart grids that's what we'll call it. $$$$$$$$$$
$479 billion over 20 years sounds reasonable. We spent that much in Afghan in 5 years and what do we have to show for it ? Aside form some mil contractors with nice houses on the beach of course. IF we improved our grid with $479billion from US Steel, hired US workers, bought US transformers and equipment we'd have a better economy in several ways. But wait and watch. Some gubmint employee will let contracts buying Chinese equipment, hiring south of the border immigrants and contractors using imported construction equipment. Later, some idiot will ask how we spent the money and there was no stimulus !
Fixing out infrastructure, at this point in time, makes excellent sense. There is much to be done and with unemployment as high as it is, we have the manpower to do it. The reason it is not being done is that the defense contractors want to money for war and unncessaey defense contracts, We, the people should be clamoring for jobs, not cuts. A healthy nation is a national fully employed.
I'm not sure that Americans understand just how outdated our electric grid is.
Last year, the country of Germany lost power for a total of 5 minutes. That's everywhere in the entire country, for the entire year. But Germany has invested in their infrastructure.
Things are different here. Last year, I lost power for 2 weeks after Hurricane Sandy. The year before, I lost it for 1 week (Hurricane Irene), and 13 days (freak October snowstorm) - and many short periods in addition to that. Just last Friday, I had 3 power outages (7 hours, 2 hours, and 55 minutes), and another 90 minutes on Saturday.
When I lose power, I also lose water. It's not possible to flush a toilet or wash my hands. After just a few days, it's not possible to stay in my house.
These are conditions that one might expect to endure in Moldova, but I certainly don't find them acceptable in one of the the richest nations on Earth. Nor should anyone.
Roadkill and IReadYou make excellent points - our defense spending would be much better spent defending against the impacts of a crumbling infrastructure. Because there's no way we can remain a superpower with the lights out.
Haha - called it! About 10 minutes in - (half-jokingly) "Obama will use this to launch a campaign for a smart grid".
Not that I don't think it's needed - it absolutely is (even though the term is vague, the issue is very real) - just think it's funny :)
Maybe you should move Physicist, sounds like your local power company has a plethora of problems. Out here in Denver we rarely have an outage. Perhaps a momentary flicker now and then from load switching, but nothin' else.
But yes, even a bow and arrow and a few hundred feet of copper wire would raise havoc with the grid, especially out here in the West in certain spots.
So they dont know the cause but they already know the solution which happens to be their existing agenda and they dont think anybody will notice that bias? And they cant figure out why nobody listens to them. hmmmm.
Yeah and he will have all the attendees from the super bowl as a backdrop to jump start the campaign for impact effect
This expert is just using the power outage to push his agenda. The outage at the Superdome would not have been prevented by a smartgrid. The cause of the power outage at the Superdome was actually caused by modern power equipment at the facility functioning exactly as it was designed to. When the Superdome's power system detected a surge on one of the power feeds coming into the facility the safety system opened the breakers. This is designed to happen in order to prevent the surge from damaging or electrical equipment, possibly starting fires, and potentially causing transformers to explode - not to mention possibly injuring people. They have not yet determined what caused the surge in the feed to the facility and they may never be able to say with certainty what caused it. Unfortunately, with high demand power systems like the Superdome surges do occur from time to time. This is the reason that equipment is installed to handle it and prevent damage. Surges are most often caused by large, rapid changes in power demand from a facility, but I do not know if that was the case here. The truth is that the systems in the Superdome functioned the way a modern power system should, it isolated the problem to prevent further damage. This is why they were able to bring the power back on in about 30 minutes instead of having to spend days or even weeks replacing damaged equipment in order to restore power.
Yes, our national power grid is sorely in need of updating. We need to invest in improving the power grid in this country to prevent future blackouts and to protect it from potential hostile acts. The current power grid is old and has been built piecemeal over more than a century without any master plan. This has resulted in a system that is both inefficient and has many weak spots and points where a single failure can cause widespread problems. Also, the lack of automated safety systems, like the one that protected the Superdome, means that a single failure at a critical point can cause a cascade of failures through a much larger part of the grid. It is these cascade failures that have caused things like the huge power outage through a large portion of the northeast a few years ago or the one not long ago that took down a good part of southern CA and Arizona. The power grid definitely needs investment and more safety systems need to be installed to prevent a single equipment failure from cascading through the system. At present, installing equipment to prevent these cascades should be the number one priority as it represents the most immediate threat to the grid.
NO $#!+
Agree with JS in SD
Everyone's an engineer. I, on the other hand, have been involved with power generation and distribution for decades...and know the Smart Grid is a scam for utilities to DECREASE their system capacity and peak reserve capability-by installing onerous time-of-use pricing to force consumers to alter their life style to suit the utilities artificially imposed limits. Want A/C in the middle of the day? You're going to pay plenty for that little luxury. Carried to its logical extreme, we could have daily rolling blackouts like Iraq.
For any red-blooded All-American stock-holding capitalist, the future only exists for the next quarter. Or as Alfred E. Neuman says, "What, me worry?"
godLovesLosers,
Our electric company provides a discount for customers who VOLUNTARILY allow the shutting-off of A/C for a max of 15 minutes per 24 hour period (by installing a shutoff switch at the customer's A/C unit, which is remotely operated by the Utility Co). Not receiving the discount is solely the discretion of the customer.
Evening out usage to reduce peak loads, leads to reduced costs, efficiency and lower prices.
This works for movie theaters also, where matinee tickets are often cheaper than evening tickets.
Paying for over-night delivery costs more than 3-day delivery. Higher demand products fetch higher prices. It's called capitalism, and nobody is being forced to demand and pay more.
#1 -
Hi Chef,
a " Smart Grid " starts with " Smart users ", so how many have a self sustainable Home roof mounted PV system, does the Government want smart users to be self sufficient, do power utilities want it?
So start thinking smart, saving money and in the proccess, help " Save the Planet Earth"!
Up here, in the northeast, we used to have a very reliable electrical utility. They went "public," and were bought out by a foreign utility company. Since then, we've had several blackouts, (thankfully less than the many small utilities in the next state over, who very seldom do any real preventative maintenance, unlike our previous one.)
But, with the interconnection to the national grid, that has become more common for us, as the major cities and their utility companies have just taken the money and run, leaving the customers in the outlying areas to suffer, as our linemen and companies go running to those cities, to make out like bandits. (I'm not talking about the workers, but the company execs that send those people to do the hard physical labor of repairing that outdated infrastructure.
Something does need to be done, but who's going to pay the bill?
The chinese can't shut us down via the internet if we have a bejumbled, inefficient, disconnected, dysfunctional, system. They can hit a section but it won't be big because our crappy old components don't talk to each other well. Build out a new and wonderful system and before you know it virus from the Chinese will cascade across the country shore to shore. No siree !! I think we'll just keep the old crappy system thank you very much !
It's been this way from the begining since Westinghouse controlled the work of Tesla. I think what could have happened is when people were disconnecting stuff from halftime show someone messed up. Damn electricians. I know I am one haha.
Probably human error causing an overload or short, or simply a worn out breaker or other component.
What they're not telling you about the "smart grid" is that it will allow the power companies to cut power off to select areas, homes, and even a single appliance (like A/C) within a single home anytime they want. It will also allow the power companies to collect, use and sell endless amounts of data about you. Oh yeah, while bathing you in a steady glow of RF radiation. At a higher cost to you! Progress!
Loosen your tin foil hat.
...or maybe we just shouldn't have such energy sucking events! The blackout was the best part of the game!
The energy used at the stadium is a drip in the bucket compared to the energy and fuel expended to transport all the spectators and participants to the game, house and feed them, etc.
California is in the worst shape followed closely by New Jersey then Ohio.
...no matter what anyone says, beyonce's singing wasn't that bad................
oh, she sang !!! I must have missed it.
All I saw was a soft porn floor show at half time.
All she needed was a pole on center stage and a g string
Sounds like all kinds of envy going on - she is a beautiful, talented woman with real appeal. How quickly you forgot about Madonna last year - what a cluster that was. Madonna dreams about being Beyonce's age and in her shape. You are probably having the same dream.
Most of the self healing smart grid stuff already exists and can be put into service, but the utility investment dollars are not there in a lot of places. Utilities are facing extreme cost pressures to deal with envrionmental compliance costs for aging coal plants, investment in new generation and required renewables portfolios, etc. This is a highly regulated industry, so the dollars from rate payers must be judiciously spent. FYI, I do not work for a utility, but I am familiar with their generation operations.
It is my understanding (and local utility Entergy is on the record as saying..) that the fault originated within the SuperDome not from the utility feed. The substation breaker owned by Entergy never opened, so power was continuously fed to the PCC, or point of common coupling, at the SuperDome. Apparently, a relay or other protective device in Dome-owned equipment detected an "abnormal condition" (fault) and did its job by opening the breaker in question.
The halftime show was powered completely by a standby generation system and not through the Dome normal power system, so apparently no correlation there between the show and the fault.
Somebody has some 'splainin' to do.....
You are probably correct in your assumption concerning the chain of events. It has been postulated that "Smart Grids" might just be a little too smart. Every new substation circuit breaker system and those pole mounted re-closing circuit breakers are controlled through their own programing within the unit. Parameters are programed into the units depending on certain factors. Those factors may include distance from the source, historical load considerations and other aspects. Most of these circuit breakers can be controlled from a distance through either radio (cell phone) connections, fiber optic cables or even the old copper phone wires carrying the signals for monitoring all aspects of the breaker's operation.
My experience, having worked in the electric utility business for almost forty years, is that the more technology we add to any system, the more can go wrong. The advent of computer controlled systems have certainly brought a myriad of its own problems including computer hacking of utility systems worldwide. Interconnecting systems in today's world is certainly the way to go and these systems can and do help, BUT, if the systems aren't 'tuned' properly to work together, problems can, and WILL occur.
Yep. The "Smart" part of the stadium's internal grid shutdown power for self-protection.
This article is crap. Yes, the country's grid needs vast improvement, but this article is trying to ride coattails that don't exist.
While reading your post my battery backup surge protector just beeped four times. The grid knows we're talking about it!!
I agree with this thread - it is likely that some equipment in the Dome was a little too smart. If it was all mechanical circuit breaker stuff (with interlaced multiple sources), the result of the fault would probably not have been so large.
It appears that Prof. Amin is using this incident to push his agenda, even though he admits lack of knowledge about the cause. A 'smart grid' outside the stadium would have made no difference.
Customer owned circuit breakers are virtually the same (operation wise and programming wise) and they come in all types of configurations from the manufacturer as per the Engineer's specs. If the group or individual who programs the breaker's functions doesn't completely comprehend the needed, engineered settings (usually, but not always, with a laptop) the breaker's INTENDED performance will be lacking to say the least. I would make a wild guess and say that there was either a programing error or a possible defect in the electronic "brain" that controls the breaker. It might take a while to find out just what happened.
Make the power companies cough up some of the mass profits and invest in new equipment and not just new grids but green power sources. They are more concerned about payment of huge salaries to the upper crust management and deep pocket investors. We had a local power company CEO (about 500,000 customers) that his salary and perks for last year were ONLY just over $1.4 million. So imagine what the big cats at the big power companies get.
All the major power companies have their rates controlled by local, county or state boards. If any of the companies have massive profits, which they don't, those rates were agreed to by those controlling bodies.
The head of Edison International runs a massive business with 20,000 employees. He makes almost $3M a year. Seems about right to me, maybe a touch high. The head of a similar sized non-utility would be making $3M to $15M per year.
Improve the nation's infrastructure and put people to work? Nah...that's just crazy
"Green Energy" at its best!! You gotta love it when "going green" means, in reality, "going black". We waste billions of dollars on "green energy" (ever heard of Solyndra, for example), and have nothing to show for it except failure after failure (Chevy Volt, for example), all in the name of saving money. We want electric cars so we can save, we want solar panels so we can save, we want energy-efficient light bulbs so we can save, etc.... Yet, we do not even blink an eye when our government sends billions of dollars to Pakistan, and other countries who hate our guts, and burn our flag. Does this make sense to you?
Get over the Solyndra crap. The truth is that green energy is evolving despite big oil trying desperately to deny it. If renewables take hold, what will they do with all the high $ oil? Technology does not roll out of the box 100% perfect. Just like the first home computers came with no programs on them and did virtually nothing if you didn't know how to program them. What would have happened if everyone said..."well this is stupid and doesn't do much, so forget about creating a computer, they are useless."
And by all means, tell me how many "billions" we've wasted on green energy vs. payouts to big oil polluters. Typical, you think there is no end to what the earth can provide and improving on anything is wasted. Just think what would have happened if "smart" people had quit trying to improve, what would we have not discovered? Created? Just because you will likely be gone by the time this chicken comes home to roost doesn't mean your kids or grand kids should you have any, won't suffer for your indifference. I wonder how you will be viewed in their eyes.... Ignorant or just selfish?
If the utility companies won't fix the power grid, the federal government should just nationalize them. I am very doubtful of the usefulness of "for profit" utility companies anyway.
If you think it's bad now, wait until the government is controlling the flow of energy!!
We need younger politicians in office. How hard will Washington work on this issue when most of the grid should outlast most of the people currently in office? Unless it is an immediate threat or perceived immediate threat we don't react. "By the people for the people" has become "buy the people for the few".
I thought the outage was rather funny...it's an overblown and ridicuous event that is only a football game.
Please, can ANYONE explain exactly how a "smart" grid is going to overcome the physical damage to the infrastructure that storms like Sandy does?
Is the "smart" grid going to miraculously divert power around missing poles and electrical power grid to a persons home or business where the rest of the infrastructure has been demolished also?
I REALLY want to hear EXACTLY how that's going to happen.
It wont overcome any damage, what it is supposed to do is stop the damage from affecting larger areas than what is damaged by rerouting around the damaged section.
Or... maybe just turning it off or creating 'brown out' situations and diverting it to a more politically correct and subservient area that agrees with a specific administration?
No.... the government would never consider doing something like that would they?
This reminds me of " City of Ember"..
There is plenty of money in the bloated defense budget to redirect the needed funds to an infrastructure project that will address this issue. After all, it into itself is a matter of defense.
The utility companies would rather spend massive amounts of money puting "Smart" devices on their meters so they can fire the guy walking around door to door getting your reading! Another means of spending lots of money to save a few bucks! They people laid off will now collect unemployment rather than a pay check! Good going electric companies! Another way to help our economy go down the toilet!
We will probably get power infrastructure improvements when we have finally had enough wars.
We might get a national high speed rail system when Hell freezes over.
Domestic drones in the skies with the power to kill anybody any time, yes sir, right away.
Might as well face it: all out taxes are going somewhere else to satisfy a hidden agenda, conspired in private by the monolith call corporatocracy.
Everybody knows that our infrastructure needs repairing. Hopefully with us getting out of major wars, we can finally focus on our own country for a change.
Are you suggesting nationalizing the entire power grid?
Sure, why not. We all know just how effective and efficient the government is. (OK.. sarcasm button turned off.)
Take out a enough high voltage towers and you could leave most of America in the dark. A smart grid is not likely to handle something like that unless we bury our high voltage lines in the process of building the grid.
using the Superbowl to illustrate to the masses how a minor glitch in the power grid can occur is a good way to sell to the taxpayers why we need to replace it. This way they can justify hiring a 'Grid Czar' and adding another trillion to the debt and introduce a system that will be more expensive to construct and maintain = increased costs.
New orleans wasnt very well run before katrina and it hasnt drastically improved.
Sounds like # 22 leads a charmed life.
I wonder if #22 has ever experienced a power failure of more than 24 hours with freezing temperatures?
I wonder if # 22 has every had to repair a drain, fix a leak, or had a car problem.
I wonder if # 22 really believes that nuttin' ever needs repairing - like roads, roofs, electrical grids or TV's.
Sounds like #22.2 lives high up on their hobby horse passing judgments on people without having a frigging clue.
I wonder if #22.2 has ever fought in a war zone, being shot at by invisible enemies and running the risk of death 24/7?
I wonder if #22.2 has ever held someone in their arms that they cared about and watching them as they died?
I wonder if #22.2 likes large cylindrical shaped objects shoved up their rectum?
Private for profit companies who have a 2 to 300% markup should not receive government funds nor be allowed to pass cost to consumer without direct competition. We have laws against monopolies, which they would become if standardized and subsidized by taxpayers. Nationalize oil, gas, and Nuclear also, communism coming soon. Command, control, and disarm.
I'm just wanting to know why this is a government problem. Aren't the power companies responsible for this? I certainly pay them enough coin to run some new wires. Every time there's a storm they just put the same wires back up the same way, sounds like a good time to do some rework.
No, the 'power companies' are not responsible for this at all. Power was being supplied. The customer equipment inside the Dome had a problem. To understand the concept, just call the 'power company' the next time you have a fault on your side of the meter, in your house. They will explain that it is the customer's responsibility to have electrical problems repaired inside the house - if there is a hazard, they will be glad to disconnect the power until repairs can be finished. They will then inspect the work and reconnect the power. In most places, the disconnect-reconnect is without charge (when done to allow repairs.) A default on payment would be a different situation.
You do realize that this story was about "the grid". not the stupid superdome, and not about a failure in your house. I can't even figure out how you got to your rant from what I wrote.
Do you know why other countries pay a fraction of the cost's we do? They gouge Americans because the market is manipulated. We pay to research,invent, produce, and then get shafted of any profit. We also give them tax breaks and incentives to invest oversea's. That is a fact.
wow the kooks are out in HUGE numbers today....
gooks!