Blackout in Southern Portugal in 09/May/2000

Cigr Workshop on Large Disturbances

Paris Session 2000

Blackout in Southern Portugal in 09/May/2000

Spain

Porto

Spain

Lisboa

red - 400 kV
green- 220 kV
blue- 150 kV

Blackout in Southern Portugal - Overview

Porto

Porto

2
1

Spain

Spain
3

Lisboa

Lisboa

1- Single-Phase Fault caused by Stork

2- Breaker failed to open at one end
3 - Neighbour Breakers isolate Substation

Blackout in Southern Portugal - Overview

Porto

Northern Portugal was

sending 1000 MW to the
South

Spain

Southern Portugal was

consuming 1900 MW
3 x150 kV lines tripped
Lisboa

Underfrequency Relays were

not enough

3x300 MW

3x300 MW generators tripped

Blackout in Southern Portugal - Overview

AFTER THE INCIDENT
Porto

Spain

Lisboa

1900 MW were lost

~ 5 million people affected
Restoration started after 3 min.
All supply was restored at the
Transport Substations 1 hour
later (excepting one Substation
which took 2 hours)
1575 MWh not delivered
(Transport Responsibility)
More than 2000 MWh
considering also the Distribution
Equivalent Interruption Time
~25 minutes (yearly typical was
less than 10 minutes)

Blackout in Southern Portugal - Analysis

Substation Topology where problems occurred
Bar 1

Bar 1

Bar 2

Bar 2

...

Trip control

Bypass Bar

Protection

Line
x
Normal Situation

Trip control

...

Bypass Bar

Protection

Line
x
Line x in Bypass

Blackout in Southern Portugal - Analysis

1- Breaker Trip Control Blocked

Bar 1

Line Protections at both ends

correctly issued trip controls
Wrong indication status of line
disconnector blocked the trip
control
Cable substitution works in the
morning of the same day at the
substation were the immediate
cause of the wrong indication
status

Bar 2

...

Bypass Bar
Line Line
1
2

Blackout in Southern Portugal - Analysis

Description of Breaker Failure Protection
Bar 1

Whenever a trip control is

issued, a timer starts and after
~150 ms the current of the trip
target line is checked for zero
If current <> 0 a trip control is
issued to the busbar coupler
and to all breakers connected
to the same bar
It is an Operations Policy to
distribute the lines between the
two bars to minimise the
consequences of incidents of
this type and of bar faults

Bar 2

...

Bypass Bar

To zone
A

To zone
B

Blackout in Southern Portugal - Analysis

2- Bad Cabling at Busbar Coupler

The Breaker Fault Protection

correctly issued a trip order to
the busbar coupler but it failed
to be executed because two
wires were swapped
Had this control be executed,
the incident should have much
smaller proportions since the
1000 MW North-South transit
would have been maintained by
the other 400 kV line
The wrong wiring was made
after the substation
commissioning in the seventies
The other breakers have not
opened because the current
caused by the fault was not big
enough

Porto
2

Spain
1

Lisboa

Blackout in Southern Portugal - Technical Review

A breaker trip was blocked by a bad indication of the

line disconnector
Busbar coupler hasnt opened because of wrong
wiring
Presence of a strong transit from North to South due
to favourable Hydroelectric conditions

10

Blackout in Southern Portugal - Restoration

The service was recovered within one hour, which was
considered good, given the dimension of the problem
HOWEVER:
Some lines were put back in service without prior verification of
proper conditions causing overvoltages. Fortunately this has not
caused further problems
During some time we lost the Dynamic Line Colouring due to
the reception of an erroneous Earth Disconnector Status
An operator, instead of pushing a button to start the Disturbance
Recording facility, activated a poke-point at a display meant to
Play an old incident. For some time old data instead of new
one was shown at that console
It became more clear the necessity of a DTS (Dispatcher
Training Simulator)

11

Blackout in Southern Portugal - Future Actions

To do efforts to reschedule for an earlier date the upgrade of
some existing 150 kV lines to 220kV and of a new
interconnection with Spain
To do the complete substitution of SPGU type cables in the
faulty substation and in another one with the same type of
cables and age (around 30 years)
To make a Procedure Manual for Works in Substations in
Service (the existing rules are not organised in one document)
To write procedures for Breaker Fault and Busbar Protections
Preventive Maintenance Tests
To eliminate the confirmation of the line current value for the trip
orders issued by the Breaker Fault Protection

12

Blackout in Southern Portugal - Future Actions

To reschedule for earlier date the installation of local
automatism's, for opening the breakers when a zero voltage is
detected at the busbar, in the 5 Substations still without them
Simulation study to assess the overvoltage values which
occurred during the service restoration
To allocate more resources for starting to use the DTS
Monitoring via SCADA of indications inconsistencies (ex: line
disconnector open and line current <>0)
Review of the existing Underfrequency Load Shed Plan

13

Blackout in Southern Portugal - The Media

1 - Chronology
The incident occurred at 9/May 22:17
All substations but one were back in service at 23:25 (the last
one required a visit and was back at 00:38 of 10/May)
Phone call to Portuguese News Agency at 23:30
Directors were interviewed in the 4 Portuguese TV channels
Statement by the REN Board of Directors sent to News Agency
at 10/May 05:00 (by this time the origin of the incident was still
unknown but reference was made to malfunction in one
Substation )
Press Conference by EDP (REN owner) at 11/May 17:00

14

Blackout in Southern Portugal - The Media

2 - Difficulties
There was a strike scheduled for that day and some people
found hard to believe it had not been sabotage
REN stressed the incident origin was a stork and not sabotage
Although in the first statement by REN, the stork origin was still
unknown and Substation malfunction was mentioned, and
although REN has stressed that every year storks cause lots of
incidents which pass unnoticed since they are automatically
dealt with:
Some media conveyed the general idea that The Security of the
Nation should not be vulnerable to storks

Many people are still puzzled about the catastrophic

consequences of unimportant events

15

Blackout in Southern Portugal - The Media

3 - Clichs
Accusations of Economy over Security for not having more
thermal power connected in the South :
it would be ruinous to spill water in these circumstances

Accusations of Outsourcing:
in reality the mistakes have been done by in-house workers

Reduction in Investments and in Personnel

although there has been a reduction in personnel the equivalent
interruption time has been decreasing from 20 minutes, ten years
ago, to below 10 minutes in the last years
the investment has been around 50 million USD/year during the last
5 years; we have difficulty to build new lines but the consumption is
increasing around 5%/year; some lines are being operated very
near to their limits (but it was not here the case)

16

Blackout in Southern Portugal - Historic Performance

e.i.t. : equivalent interruption time = (non delivered / total energy) x 365x24x60
minutes

70
60
50
40

09-Mai
e.i.t.

30
20
10
1999

1997

1995

1993

1991

1989

1987

1985

1983

17