Dive Brief:
- Utilities, the California Independent System Operator and others violated national reliability standards, causing a massive blackout in the Southwest in September 2011, according to preliminary findings by Federal Energy Regulatory Commission staff.
- FERC staff believe that Arizona Public Service, Southern California Edison, Imperial Irrigation District (IID), the Western Area Power Administration's Desert Southwest division and the Western Electric Coordinating Council's reliability coordinator violated at least one reliability standard related to the outage.
- IID expects to reach a roughly $12 million settlement with FERC related to the allegations.
Dive Insight:
About 2.7 million people lost power during the 2012 power during the outage. An earlier FERC and North American Electric Reliability Corporation report found that utilities and grid operators and planners in the region failed in “operations planning and real-time situational awareness.” The likely IDD settlement means there will probably be more.
