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This is a list of notable wide-scale power outages.
[edit] Largest
- On December 27, a storm destroyed equipment connecting the powerlines in Enköping, Sweden.
- On July 7, a powerful wind storm affected a large portion of central North America and knocked power to about 1 million customers from Iowa to Ontario.[9]
- On October 4, Hurricane Opal, which killed at least 59 people, knocked out power to over 2 million customers across eastern and southern North America. [10]
- The early-January 1998 Ice Storm in northeastern North America caused prolonged blackouts, particularly in Quebec where many transmission towers were destroyed by ice. Over 3.5 million customers in total lost power during the event.[12]
- On May 31, a powerful wind storm knocked out power to nearly 2 million customers across much of Central North America.[14]
- On December 8, affecting San Francisco, California, and its environs, over 350,000 consumers were affected by an outage caused when the PG&E utility placed a San Mateo sub-station online at 8:17 am PST, while the station was still grounded following maintenance. This drew so much power from the Peninsula transmission lines that 25 other sub-stations in San Francisco automatically and immediately shut down. Power was not fully restored until almost 4 pm the same day. Economic costs were estimated in tens of millions of dollars.[citation needed]
- On September 5, a power outage left at least 3 million Mexicans in the southern Yucatan peninsular without electricity.
- On July 12, two power plants in Lavrio and Megalopoli, Greece, shut down due to malfunction within 12 hours of each other, during a period of high demand (heat wave); that led to a cascading failure causing the collapse of the entire Southern (Power) System, affecting several million people in southern Greece.[citation needed]
- On January 8, about 341,000 homes lost power in Sweden and several thousand of these were out of power for many days and even weeks in some cases. Power outage was because of the storm Erwin with wind speeds of up to 126 km/h.[citation needed]
- On August 22, all of southern and central Iraq, including parts of the capital Baghdad, all of the second largest city Basra and the only port Umm Qasr went out of power for more than 7 hours after a feeder line was sabotaged by insurgents, causing a cascading effect shutting down multiple power plants.[citation needed]
- On August 26, 1.3 million people in South Florida lost power due to downed trees and power lines caused by the then category 1 Hurricane Katrina. Most customers affected were without power for four days, and some customers had no power for up to one week.[citation needed]
- On June 12, half of Auckland, the largest city in New Zealand, suffers an 8-hour long power outage affecting 230,000 customers due to a shackle in a substation dislodging and short circuiting a mains wire. This caused problems for many businesses, however three enterprising students set up an impromptu foodcourt and sold a selection of barbecued goods to the hungry consumers.
- On August 1, in the Laurentians, in the province of Québec, Canada, a large amount (146,000, at its peak in the evening of August 1) of households were left without electricity for a whole day, and some for up to a whole week due to intense thunderstorms that rolled through southern Quebec including the Greater Montreal Area. Over 450,000 customers in total were affected.[19]
- On October 12, an unusual early-season lake effect snow storm hit the Buffalo, New York area and other surrounding areas of the United States and Canada. The storm dumped snow from that night through the morning of Friday October 13, 2006. At 8:00 pm, NWS Buffalo began to receive numerous reports of trees and power lines toppling after 3 inches (7.6 cm) of snow accumulated. It was later called the "October Surprise Storm" or Lake Storm "Aphid".[citation needed]
- On October 15 an 6.5 magnitude earthquake occurred in the US state of Hawaii at about 7:07 am causing a power outage to most of the state. Luckily, nobody was hurt due to the power outage or earthquake. The power was restored that night.
- On the night of November 4, in parts of Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Spain and Portugal over five million people were left without power after a big cascading breakdown. The root cause was an overload triggered by the German electricity company E.ON switching off an electricity line over the river Ems to allow the cruise ship Norwegian Pearl to pass through safely. The impact of this disconnection on the security of the network had not been properly assessed, and resulted in the European transmission grid splitting into three independent parts for a period of two hours. The imbalance between generation and demand in each section resulted in the power outages for consumers.[21]
- 2006 Queens blackout: On July 18, and continuing for over one week, upwards of 50,000 Queens, New York, and Westchester County Con Edison customers lost power due to excessive heat and dilapidated infrastructure. In Astoria, several power lines and transformers caught fire, melted, or failed as Con Edison attempted to restore service. Two air control towers at LaGuardia Airport lost power briefly on the 18th, resulting in the cancellation of some 45 flights and re-routing of 11 others. Subway service on several Queens lines (BMT Astoria Line, IRT Flushing Line, and IND Queens Boulevard Line) was suspended and/or reduced throughout the outage. On July 20, Con Edison announced that approximately 2,500 Queens customers were still without power. On July 21, Con Edison announced a revised estimate of "at least 25,000." On the same day, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg stated that Con Edison's definition of "customer" referred to each building they provided power and that the number of people without power was possibly 100,000. More than 3,000 Con Edison customers—an estimated 10,000 people—remained without power as of July 24.[citation needed]
- On January 16, power was cut to 200,000 people in the Australian state of Victoria when bushfires caused the state's electricity connection to the national grid to shut down.[23]
- On April 19, Costa Rica experienced a national blackout at 20:10 local time. It affected nearly all the 4,328,000 Costa Ricans at that time. Power restoration started gradually at 21:45 local time.[citation needed]
- On April 26, Colombia experienced a nation-wide blackout at about 10:15 am local time, caused by an undetermined technical failure at a substation in the capital, Bogota, Colombia. Power returned to most parts of the country after several hours.[citation needed]
- On June 27, a power failure occurred in New York City. About 136,700 customers were without power during the height of the outage. The outage affected Manhattan and the Bronx for approximately one hour.[24]
- On July 23, the city of Barcelona suffered a near-total blackout. Several areas remained without electricity for more than 78 hours due to a massive electrical substation chain failure.[25].
- On October 10, a blackout occurred around the area of Oxted in Surrey, England at about 19:00 local time (18:00 GMT) and lasted for a total of up to 20 minutes, having been restored for about 2 seconds before a second blackout occurred.[citation needed]
- On December 2, a winter storm damaged transmission systems, resulting in a blackout over much of Eastern Newfoundland & Labrador affecting close to 100,000 customers. About 7,500 customers on the Bonavista Peninsula were without service for almost a week.[26][27]
- On January 22, the same area affected by the 2007 Halloween power-cut in Greater Manchester, England suffered another blackout, this time lasting an hour, from 19:15 to 20:15 local time.[citation needed]
- Also on January 22, the East Bay of San Francisco suffered a partial blackout lasting several hours, beginning approximately 20:00 local time.[citation needed]
- From January 25 to February 6, heavy snowstorms in China knocked down transmission lines. Fossil fuel power plant were running low on supply of coal as trains were unable to deliver coal due to frozen/blocked track. The storms were directly responsible for at least 129 deaths.
- On January 29, strong wind gusts in excess of 60 mph (97 km/h) caused around 70,000 people to lose power in Dallas County. In Southern Denton County, many customers also lost power. In Lewisville, around 2,000 people lost power. In Flower Mound, there were many dropouts. However, they only lasted from 10 seconds to 1 minute.[citation needed]
- On February 11, southern Calgary lost power due to ice buildup on power lines, overloading transformers.
- On February 20, Coal supplies to some power plants in Java have been stopped, as ships cannot go to ports because of big waves, resulting in an electricity deficit of about 1,000 megawatts affecting the Indonesian capital, Jakarta[32]
- On February 26, a failed switch and fire at an electrical substation outside Miami triggered widespread blackouts in parts of Florida affecting four million people. The nuclear reactors at Turkey Point power plant were shut down on the 84 °F (29 °C) day.[33] The failure knocked out power to customers in 35 southern Florida counties and spread into the northern Florida peninsula. The affected region ultimately ranged from Miami to Tampa on the state's west coast and Brevard County, home to Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center, on the east.[34][35]
- On April 2, 2008 around 420,000 households were left without power in Melbourne, and other parts of Victoria after the state was hit by winds of up to 130 km/h. [36]
- On April 8, 2008, from around 3:30 am around 400,000 persons were left without power in the city of Szczecin and its surroundings (as far as 100 km away from the city), in northwest Poland. Most power was restored within 18 hours. The reason was the fall of wet, heavy snow, which stuck to the power cables and caused them to break. One of the major powerline pillars broke in the aftermath as well.[37]
- On April 29, Venezuela experienced a blackout that affected 40% of the country. It happened at 4:30 pm ET and the power was restored by 10 pm ET. It affected 16 states including Zulia, Lara, Carabobo, Yaracuy, Portuguesa, Miranda, Falcon, Merida, Aragua, Bolivar, Tachira and parts of Caracas. [38]
- On June 24, 2008, a faulty underground wire caused a power failure in Maidstone Town Centre and surrounding areas for numerous hours.[citation needed]
- On August 4, 2008, an extremely strong storm swept through the Chicago, Illinois and Northwest Indiana areas. In Chicago, ComEd, the Chicago electrical company, reported 200,000 customers to be without power at 6:27pm. In Northwest Indiana, NIPSCO reported that 65,000 people were without power at the height of the storm. Storm recovery continued for almost 2 weeks in both states.
- On September 1, 2008, power blackouts hit Venuzuela. [38]
- Between 13 and 15 September 15, 2008, Hurricane Ike caused approximately 7.5 million to lose power in the United States from Texas to New York.
- On October 12, 2008 at 5:40pm power went out for all BC Hydro customers on the South of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. Around 200,000 people were left in the dark. The problem appeared to caused by a transmission line somewhere around Ladysmith, BC. Power was returned to most customers around an hour to an hour and a half later.[citation needed]
- On December 11, 2008, rare winter snowfall on Southern Louisiana caused 10,000 power outages, due to the accumulation of snow on transmission lines. Later that night in Massachusetts and New Hampshire an ice storm hit causing 1,000,000 people to lose their power. [39]
- On December 26, 2008, 80% of power was lost for 12 hours on the island of Oahu, Hawaii at about 6:45 pm, suspected to be due to a thunderstorm with lightning striking transmission lines. [40]
- On January 15, 2009, Toronto Hydro shut down a transformer station after water flooding at a control centre. It initially affected 22,000 homes and businesses.[41][42]
- On January 23, 2009, a severe windstorm knocked out power to 1.2 million customers in parts of France. [43]
- On January 27, 2009, an ice storm hit Kentucky knocking out power to about 769,000.[44] As of February 15 about 12,000 were still without power from this storm.[45]
- From 27 to 31 January, hundreds of thousands of homes in Victoria including Melbourne suffered various power failures as a result of a record heat wave.It is estimated that over 500,000 residents in Melbourne were without power for the evening of 30 January 2009.[24] The outtage affected much of central Melbourne with train and tram services cancelled, the evacuation of Crown Casino, traffic light failures, people being rescued from lifts and patrons of the Victorian Arts Centre evacuated and shows cancelled. The outage occurred only an hour after the National Electricity Market Management Company (NEMMCO) issued a statement saying load shedding was ending and power had been restored. Authorities say there had been a major electricity failure in the city's west, caused by the three-day heatwave. It is believed an explosion at South Morang contributed to the power problems along three transmission lines supplying Victoria's west and Victorian power supplier SP AusNet shed 1,000 megawatts.[24] On the 30th of January, Energy Minister Peter Batchelor announced consumers who lose power for more than 20 hours would be eligible for compensationref>Alice Coster (31 January 2009). "People forced to walk streets in Victorian blackout". Herald Sun. http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24986916-2862,00.html. </ref>[46][47] It is estimated that over 500,000 residents in Melbourne were without power for the evening of 30 January 2009.
- On 6 March 2009, power to a large area of Maidstone, Kent, United Kingdom was lost due a numerous faults with a power substation in the Oxford Road, in the shepway borough of the town. The first fault occurred at around 12am causing a power failure to Marden, Linton, Boughton Monchelsea and Loose, at 5am a second fault caused the power to fail in Shepway, Downswood, Bearsted and Maidstone Town Centre, power was restored to all these areas at 8.15am after causing rush hour chaos as all the main roads in the town were not signal controlled. At 11am a third fault caused a power failure in Parkwood and Senace, power was restore after 30 minutes. At 1am EDF made the decision to turn off the power to most of Maidstone to repair the substation, the areas affected by this power failure were Marden, Coxheath, Linton, Boughton Monchelsea, Chart Sutton, Sutton Valence, Loose, Shepway, Tovil, Parkwood and Senacre. In parts of Shepway, Parkwood, Linton and Senacre power was not restored until 10pm. This power failure caused the traffic lights to fail on the Loose Road, Linton Road, Sutton Road and Willington Street as they failed to turn back on when power was restored, these were not repaired till late on the Saturday, also parts of Shepway reported complete street light failure on the Saturday Evening.
- On 3 February 2009, power to a large portion of Auckland, New Zealand was cut following failure of a Transpower substation transformer. [48]
- On 30 March 2009, the CBD of Sydney, Australia was plunged into darkness at 4:45pm, following the failure of the four lines delivering power to the CBD. The power outage forced the closure of both the Sydney Harbour Tunnel and the Eastern Distributor toll roads. Power was slowly restored to the Eastern Suburbs after 6:45pm with most of the city following shortly after. [49]
- On 13 April 2009, the West Swindon area of Swindon, Wiltshire, United Kingdom was sent to a blackout at 9:00pm most of the West swindon area was affected by the blackout, but many had their power returned after an 1 hour - 2 hour depending on the area they are living, other parts of West Swindon and near West Swindon such as SN4 (Wroughton) were subducted to dropouts.[citation needed]
- On 2 July power was cut to about 200,000 customers across five Australia states for about an hour starting at 11am, including over 100,000 in New South Wales, and 50,000 in Queensland, in Melbourne 105 set of traffic light were blackout although no homes or business lost power, in Tasmania only industrial customers where effected, the outage was linked to a genrator problem at the bays water power station in the NSW hunter valley. [50]
[edit] References
- ^ 100 million Indonesians affected by power outage. AP
- ^ Lightning knocked out Brazil power. BBC
- ^ Italy's blackout raises questions. The Guardian
- ^ The great 2003 North America blackout. CBC
- ^ The 'Great Northeastern Blackout' of 1965. CBC
- ^ Space Weather Canada - History, Canadian Space Weather Forecast Centre Ottawa, Natural Resources Canada
- ^ Space Weather, chap. 1; A Conflagration of Storms, Sten Odenwald, 2005
- ^ Who cares? Anyone living on Earth!
- ^ The Southern Great Lakes Derecho of 1991
- ^ Hurricane Opal
- ^ http://www.nwcouncil.org/history/Blackout.asp
- ^ The Ice Storm of 1998
- ^ Auckland Power Supply Failure 1998: The Report of the Ministerial Inquiry into the Auckland Power Supply Failure, Ministry of Economic Development, 21 July 1998.
- ^ The Southern Great Lakes Derecho of 1998
- ^ JULY 4-5, 1999 DERECHO" The Boundary Waters-Canadian Derecho"
- ^ The Mid South Derecho of 2003
- ^ i Østdanmark og Sydsverige 23.09.2003 – Endelig hændelsesrapport, 4.11.2003
- ^ Final report on the causes.
- ^ 2 killed in Quebec storm, thousands without power
- ^ Ontario storm leaves 150,000 without power
- ^ (UCTE) Final Report on the disturbances of 4 November 2006
- ^ Ottawa Sun
- ^ "Mass Power Outages hit State". The Age. http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/mass-power-outages-hit-state/2007/01/16/1168709751760.html.
- ^ NYC Power Outage Shuts Down Train Lines
- ^ See Spanish Wikipedia
- ^ "Power lines torn down in eastern Newfoundland". CBCnews. 3 December 2007. http://www.cbc.ca/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2007/12/03/winter-blast.html.
- ^ "Week may pass before all juice restored". CBCnews. 4 December 2007. http://www.cbc.ca/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2007/12/04/power-outage.html.
- ^ Massive 'ice-maker' stops Heartland cold
- ^ "Cause of power outage on Christmas undetermined". http://www.mysuncoast.com/Global/story.asp?S=7550401&nav=menu577_2_1.
- ^ "Troops ready to help powerless PEI". CBC News. http://www.cbc.ca/canada/prince-edward-island/story/2008/01/30/power-out.html?ref=rss. Retrieved on January 18, 2009.
- ^ "Icy roads causing difficulty for PEI power crews". CBC News. http://www.cbc.ca/canada/prince-edward-island/story/2008/01/29/roads-power.html. Retrieved on January 18, 2009.
- ^ Blackout On Indonesia's Java Due To Coal Disruption
- ^ Citizen Soldiers. Amanda Ripley. TIME. February 29, 2008.
- ^ FPL: Fire at substation was the cause
- ^ Failed switch and fire causes massive Florida power outage
- ^ "Two die as storm fury lashes Victoria". The Age. 3 April 2008. http://www.stuff.co.nz/4462722a12.html.
- ^ Awaria w Szczecinie (in Polish)
- ^ a b http://www.railpage.com.au/f-t11336983.htm
- ^ "ALeqM5jwhzTlgiwD8UzoTqAITfOIsD8s0AD950RQR00 Rare snow falls in south Louisiana". http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article ALeqM5jwhzTlgiwD8UzoTqAITfOIsD8s0AD950RQR00. [dead link]
- ^ "Power restored to most of Oahu". Honolulu Advertiser. 27 December 2008. http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20081227/BREAKING01/81227024/-1/BREAKINGNEWSFRONT.
- ^ "Power back on in west end". Toronto Star. 16 January 2009. http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/572079.
- ^ David Nickle (16 January 2009). "BLACKOUT: City working for those without power – mayor". Toronto Community News. http://insidetoronto.com/article/62386.
- ^ Al Goodman. "Four boys killed in roof collapse as storms batter Spain, France". CNN. http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/01/24/spain.roof.collapse/index.html.
- ^ http://www.herald-dispatch.com/news/briefs/x2134008686/About-56-000-customers-still-without-power-in-Ky
- ^ http://www.usatoday.com/weather/storms/winter/2009-02-15-ice-storm-power-kentucky_N.htm
- ^ "Thousands still without Power". The Age. 31 January 2009. http://www.theage.com.au/national/thousands-still-without-power-20090131-7u9b.html.
- ^ "Train System completely off the rails". The Age. http://www.theage.com.au/national/train-system-completely-off-the-rails-20090130-7u1a.html.
- ^ "Auckland power failure massive blow for local business". New Zealand Herald. 3 February 2009. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10554954.
- ^ "Power restored to Sydney CBD". Daily Telegraph. 30 March 2009. http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25263822-421,00.html.
- ^ [1]
[edit] External links