The Task Force appointed to study the causes of the 2003 electrical power blackout has issued its final report. It provides bad news for those who recommend relying upon voluntary measures to deal with challenges of this type.
"The blackout of August 14, 2003, affected some 50 million people and imposed economic losses in the United States and Canada totalling billions of dollars. The subsequent investigation of the blackout by the Task Force revealed two disquieting facts: (1) failure to comply with voluntary reliability standards was a significant contributing factor to the blackout, and (2) several causes identified in the investigations of previous blackouts were also factors in the 2003 blackout. This led the Task Force to urge the Government of the United States and federal and provincial governments in
Canada to move forward with the implementation of mandatory and enforceable reliability standards. It also led the U.S. and Canadian governments to extend the mandate of the Task Force to monitor and report on the implementation of the recommendations in order to reduce the risk of these same factors recurring in the future."
U.S.-Canada Power System Outage Task Force: Final Report on the Implementation of the Task Force Recommendations (September 2006)
The report includes 46 detailed recommendations in the following areas:
1) institutional issues relating to reliability,
2) supporting and enhancing NERC actions of February 10, 2004,
3) enhancing the physical and cyber security of North American bulk power systems and
4) the Canadian nuclear power sector.