A power outage is the loss of the electrical power network supply to an end user.
The northeast blackout of 1965 was a significant disruption in the supply of electricity on Tuesday, November 9, 1965, affecting parts of Ontario in Canada and Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont in the United States. Over 30 million people and 80,000 square miles (207,000 km2) were left without electricity for up to 13 hours.
The 2003 London blackout was a serious power outage that affected parts of south London and north-west Kent in the evening of 28 August 2003. It was caused by a series of faults at National Grid transmission substations, which supplied the distribution network operator in the area, EDF Energy.
The New York City blackout of 1977 was an electricity blackout that affected most of New York City on July 13–14, 1977. The only unaffected neighborhoods in the city were in southern Queens, which were part of the Long Island Lighting Company system, as well as the Pratt Institute campus in Brooklyn, and a few other large apartment and commercial complexes that operated their own historic power generators.
A rolling blackout, also referred to as rota or rotational load shedding, rota disconnection, feeder rotation, or a rotating outage, is an intentionally engineered electrical power shutdown in which electricity delivery is stopped for non-overlapping periods of time over different parts of the distribution region. Rolling blackouts are a last-resort measure used by an electric utility company to avoid a total blackout of the power system.
Power-system automation is the act of automatically controlling the power system via instrumentation and control devices. Substation automation refers to using data from Intelligent electronic devices (IED), control and automation capabilities within the substation, and control commands from remote users to control power-system devices.
The 2006 Auckland Blackout was a major electrical blackout in Auckland, the largest city in New Zealand, on 12 June 2006. It started at 08:30 local time, with most areas of Auckland regaining power by 14:45 local time. It affected some 230,000 customers and at least 700,000 people in and around the city.
The Northeast blackout of 2003 was a widespread power outage throughout parts of the Northeastern and Midwestern United States, and most parts of the Canadian province of Ontario on Thursday, August 14, 2003, beginning just after 4:10 p.m. EDT.
As of August 2020 Chile had diverse sources of electric power: for the National Electric System, providing over 99% of the county's electric power, hydropower represented around 26.7% of its installed capacity, biomass 1.8%, wind power 8.8%, solar 12.1%, geothermal 0.2%, natural gas 18.9%, coal 20.3%, and petroleum-based capacity 11.3%. Prior to that time, faced with natural gas shortages, Chile began in 2007 to build its first liquefied natural gas terminal and re-gasification plant at Quintero near the capital city of Santiago to secure supply for its existing and upcoming gas-fired thermal plants. In addition, it had engaged in the construction of several new hydropower and coal-fired thermal plants. But by July 2020 91% of the new capacity under construction was of renewable power, 46.8% of the total solar and 25.6% wind, with most of the remainder hydro.
An electrical grid is an interconnected network for electricity delivery from producers to consumers. Electrical grids vary in size and can cover whole countries or continents. It consists of:
The 2010 Chile blackout was an electric power outage that affected most of Chile on March 14, 2010. It began at 8:44 pm on Sunday and continued into the next day. The power was restored in a few hours in some areas, and by midnight in most areas, except in the Biobío Region.
The 2011 Southwest blackout, also known as the Great Blackout of 2011, was a widespread power outage that affected the San Diego–Tijuana area, southern Orange County, Imperial Valley, Mexicali Valley, Coachella Valley, and parts of Arizona. It occurred on Thursday, September 8, 2011, beginning at about 3:38pm PDT, and was the largest power failure in California history.
Several major power outages have occurred in the country of Malaysia.
The Maanshan Nuclear Power Plant is a nuclear power plant located near South Bay, Hengchun, Pingtung County, Taiwan. The plant is Taiwan's third nuclear power plant and second-largest in generation capacity. The expected lifespan of this plant is 60 years.
Nationwide recurring electrical blackouts in Venezuela began in March 2019. Experts and state-run Corpoelec sources attribute the electricity shortages to lack of maintenance and to a lack of technical expertise in the country resulting from a brain drain; Nicolás Maduro's administration attributes them to sabotage. Since March, various nationwide blackouts occurred in the country.
An energy collapse in the state of Zulia, Venezuela occurred as a result of the country's ongoing general crisis, and it is the largest of its kind in the history of the state. With previous events in 2015 and 2016, the collapse intensified in 2017, when in September an alleged theft of cables left the city of Maracaibo and its surroundings without electricity. Since then long and short-term blackouts have been reported, which also cause the suspension of water supply, failures in cable television, telephone coverage and Internet access, among other services, as well as difficulty conducting business transactions, caused by the scarcity of banknotes and the dependence on the large-scale use of the point of sale terminals as well as electronic payments that are deficient in the absence of electricity and the Internet, resulting in closing of establishments, absence of work, damage of food and electrical appliances, the decrease in quality of life, among other factors, which added to the high temperatures suffered by citizens, affect the normal development of the population. Authorities such as the national government and the government of Zulia have attributed these failures to an alleged sabotage, but the opposition and experts denounce that it is due to lack of maintenance, also arguing that only less than half of what is consumed regularly is produced, reason for which there is "cargo administration" (rationing). The National Assembly of Venezuela, of opposition majority, declared the region in a state of electrical emergency. The service has also been interrupted but to a lesser extent in other states such as Bolívar, Carabobo, Falcón, Mérida, Miranda, Nueva Esparta, Táchira, Vargas and the country's capital Caracas.
On 16 June 2019, a large-scale power outage struck most of Argentina, all of Uruguay, and parts of Paraguay, leaving an estimated total of 48 million people without electrical supply.
The 2020 Sri Lankan blackouts were a series of electrical blackouts that occurred on 17 August 2020, beginning around 12.30 pm SLST (UTC+5:30) and lasting over seven hours. The nationwide blackouts occurred due to a transmission technical failure at the Kerawalapitiya Grid-Sub station. The Ceylon Electricity Board announced that the cause of the blackout had not yet been determined, describing it as an unspecified failure. The Ministry of Power stated that a special committee had been appointed to investigate the root cause behind the blackout.
On December 3, 2022, a shooting attack was carried out on two electrical distribution substations located in Moore County, North Carolina, United States. Damage from the attack left up to 40,000 residential and business customers without electrical power. Initial estimates were that up to four days could be required to fully restore power in the area. A state of emergency and corresponding curfew were enacted by local government officials in the wake of the incident.
