SoftSwitching Technologies' Data Cited by U.S.-Canada Task Force

SoftSwitching Technologies' Data Cited by U.S.-Canada Task Force

MADISON, WIS. — SoftSwitching Technologies’ nationwide power-monitoring system is cited as a source by the U.S.-Canada Power System Outage Task Force in its newly released report investigating the causes for the August 14th blackout that affected large portions of the Midwest and Northeast United States and Ontario, Canada.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the Task Force requested data from SoftSwitching’s I-Grid for analysis, as well as from other utility data sources. I-Grid data provided investigators with a unique view of five electrical islands that formed in the northeast as the blackout cascaded.
Observing and tracking electrical island formation provides utilities with valuable information as they formulate grid protection strategies. In its Interim Report, the Task Force highlighted several causes and contributing factors for the blackout, including: failure to identify emergency conditions and failure to communicate that status to neighboring systems; inadequate regional and interregional-scale visibility over the power system; dysfunction of a control area’s EMS/SCADA system; and lack of adequate backup capabilities to existing EMS/SCADA systems.
SoftSwitching’s I-Grid provides wide-area-monitoring information to the public, tracking power disturbances and outages occurring on the utility distribution grid. Approximately 1,000 I-Sense monitors are installed across the United States. Each detects and measures voltage and frequency on the power grid, then transmits the information to the I-Grid web site.