13 Largest Power Outages In History

Take a look at the 13 major power outages over many years, and
. . . see that the problems we face are
. . . not because we aren’t building enough power plants.

Yet in North America and Europe, every year the regulators and
. . . the utility industry make a number of announcements
. . . comparing the expected demand and the expected supply.
Texas, with its energy crunch, has 150 new plants in the planning process.

But in every case but one:
. . . Storms, droughts, and fires knock out whole sections of the system;
. . . control errors and flubbed operations trigger shutdowns;
. . . coordination failures cause overloads.
Transmission(Poles & Wires) reliability is much more responsible for
. . . Major power outages.

1) October 2012 Northeast Hurricane Sandy
2) July 30 and 31, 2012 Northern India
3) June 2012 Derecho
4) October 2011 Northeast U.S.
5) September 8, 2011 California-Arizona
6) August 28, 2003 London
7) August 14, 2003 Northeastern US and Ontario
8) June 25, 1998 Ontario and North Central U.S.
9) July 2-3, 1996 West Coast
10) August 10, 1996 West Coast
11) December 22, 1982 West Coast
12) July 13, 1977 Northeast New York City
13) November 9, 1965 Northeast U.S. and Ontario

There were many, Minor power outages not listed and even not reported.

Source: Grid power outages