Innovation on energy power technology (15) great advances in power system stabilizing technology triggered by the wide-area outage

Abstract

On July 23, 1987, a very hot day, the largest wide-area power outage occurred in Kanto-Area, Japan. The cause was a voltage collapse on the bulk power network of Tokyo Electric Power Company, due to the abnormal rate of demand rising following resume after lunch break. Aggressive studies on voltage collapse throughout industry and university have led to great advances in power system stability. This essay describes the detail record of the outage, the applied countermeasures, and the inside story when the multiple voltage solutions of power flow on actual power system were found out for the first time. © 2009 The Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan.