North American Blackout Time Series Statistics and Implications for Blackout Risk
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The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECpE) contains two focuses. The focus on Electrical Engineering teaches students in the fields of control systems, electromagnetics and non-destructive evaluation, microelectronics, electric power & energy systems, and the like. The Computer Engineering focus teaches in the fields of software systems, embedded systems, networking, information security, computer architecture, etc.
History
The Department of Electrical Engineering was formed in 1909 from the division of the Department of Physics and Electrical Engineering. In 1985 its name changed to Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering. In 1995 it became the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
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1909-present
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- Department of Electrical Engineering (1909-1985)
- Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering (1985-1995)
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- College of Engineering (parent college)
- Department of Physics and Electrical Engineering (predecessor)
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Abstract
We use North American Electric Reliability Corporation historical data to give improved estimates of distributions of blackout size, time correlations, and waiting times for the Eastern and Western interconnections of the North American grid. We then explain and estimate the implications of the power law region (heavy tails) in the empirical distribution of blackout size in the historical data for the Western interconnection. Annual mean blackout size has high variability and the risk of large blackouts exceeds the risk of medium size blackouts. Ways to communicate blackout risk are discussed.
Comments
This is a manuscript of an article published as Carreras, Benjamin A., David E. Newman, and Ian Dobson. "North American blackout time series statistics and implications for blackout risk." IEEE Transactions on Power Systems 31, no. 6 (2016): 4406-4414. doi: 10.1109/TPWRS.2015.2510627. Posted with permission.