This past summer, 50 million people in Ontario and the Midwest and Northeast United States remembered the historical electricity blackout that left them without power. In a matter of seconds on August 14th, 2003, these Canadian and U.S. electricity customers understood first-hand just how vital electricity is in our day to day lives.

Reliability has always been a priority in the North American system, and those who endured the outage witnessed the great resiliency of the electricity system. Within 12 hours, over 2/3 of power generation had been restored to service without any damage to the generation or transmission facilities connected to the grid. However, in today's world, 12 hours is a long wait for a service as essential as electricity, and North Americans have come to expect that such incidents should never occur.

Blackout Investigation
The U.S.-Canada Power System Outage Task Force (the Task Force) was established immediately following the August blackout with two objectives:

1. to determine the causes of the blackout and why it was not contained, and


2. to develop recommendations to reduce the possibility of future outages, and minimize the scope of any that may occur.

Canadians participated actively in the deliberations of the Task Force. They oversaw and reviewed investigations of the conditions and events on the Canadian side of the border to determine whether they may have contributed to, or affected the blackout. Canadian members were also active on the Task Force’s three working groups (electric system, nuclear and security) that assisted in the investigation, and the Canadian Electricity Association (CEA) and its member companies also made oral and written submissions to meetings of the Task Force

On April 5, 2004, the Task Force released its final report which provided a description and analysis of the blackout and 46 recommendations to prevent or minimize the scope of future blackouts. The mandate of the Task Force was extended in order to oversee the implementation process of these recommendations. In order to facilitate movement on the recommendations, the U.S. Department of Energy and Natural Resources Canada have been in extensive discussions over the shape of the future Electric Reliability Organization (ERO) that would be responsible for developing and enforcing mandatory reliability standards for North America. On September 29, 2004, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) will host a joint conference on the reliability readiness review process.

Enhancing North American Reliability
CEA has focused its attention on the taskforce recommendations that have explicit cross-border relevance on institutional issues related to reliability. These include making reliability standards mandatory, an assessment of the role of NERC, and the need for an independent source of reliability performance information.

Since the final blackout report, CEA has contributed to the reliability discussion with the release of two documents. The first in April 2004, summarized the current reliability situation in each province and stated CEA's support for mandatory reliability standards. The second, released in August 2004, outlined specific characteristics of the future ERO that will draft and enforce such standards.

With respect to the latter document, CEA believes the ERO must be independent and international in design and operation, and supports NERC assuming the role of the ERO, with regulatory backstop in Canada and the U.S. This organization is an essential element of a long-term strategy to prevent further major outages.

Conclusion and Next Steps
The North American electricity system, which inter-connects Canadian and U.S. electricity markets, is among the most reliable in the world. Increasingly open markets have brought with them opportunities for new efficiencies, new technologies, and ultimately better customer service and price. However the same system is subject to a host of pressures – aging infrastructures, need for continued new build in generation and transmission to meet demand, and growing regulatory pressures.

These pressures must be alleviated, and the 2003 blackout added urgency to industry and government discussions already underway about how to do that while continuing to deliver a reliable supply of electricity to the North American market.

CEA will remain an active participant in and sponsor of discussions of North American electric reliability. The Association and its member companies are committed to ensuring customers continue to receive affordable, environmentally sound, reliable power to meet their needs day in and day out. Effective enforcement of reliability standards is now recognized as a necessary prerequisite for that commitment to be fulfilled. As we move towards an international mandatory reliability regime, Canadian entities are well-prepared to participate in a manner that will ensure the continued provision of reliable electricity supply across the continent.

Industry Measures
CEA member companies have also undertaken significant efforts to implement the Task Force recommendations, and participate in continued follow-up to the blackout investigation. A partial list of measures taken by member companies across the country includes: • increased expenditure on vegetation management;

• developing processes and documentation to ensure compliance with recommendations on IT security;


• participation in on-going revision of NERC reliability standards;


• addition of 2800 MW of supply in Ontario since August 2003;


• equipment and procedural enhancements;


• at nuclear facilities for a quicker return to service in the event of a blackout;


• participation in NERC internal investigation;


• participation in the drafting of NERC Version 0 standards that will address needs identified in the blackout investigation and provide a transition to the NERC standards currently under development.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Francis Bradley, in collaboration with the CEA team