Analysis of system power outages can help us learn and avoiding similar events in the future. However, it is very difficult in most of the cases to find out what exactly happened. Please e-mail to editor@pacw.org if you have some information related to the blackouts mentioned here.
3 August 2007, Korea
A power outage caused by a faulty transformer occurred at Samsung's Giheung complex near Seoul and disrupted production of flash memory, DRAM and logic chips. Losses are estimated at around $54 million.
25 July 2007, Albania, Macedonia, Greece
Albania, parts of Macedonia and Greece were without power as transmission lines struggled with temperatures of over 40 degrees Celsius and an increased load from air conditioners.
24 July 2007, USA
Approximately 40,000 customers in San Francisco's Financial District were affected by an outage that occurred after transmission breakers at the company's Martin Substation opened. The initial event occurred at approximately 13:30, and power was restored to all affected customers by 15:30.
23 July 2007, Spain
At 11:00 Barcelona suffered a near-total blackout blamed on cable that fell in Collblanc substation, causing a chain-reaction failure in six other substations, including fire in one of them. Several areas remained without electricity for more than 78 hours.
27 June 2007, USA
About 136,700 customers were left without power in New York City during the height of the outage caused by lightning strike in the vicinity of a Queens substation at 15:42 local time. It affected communication equipment that prompted circuit breakers on multiple transmission lines to open, causing the service interruption. Power was restored in approximately 48 minutes.
26 April 2007, Columbia
A blackout that affected more than 80 % of Columbia was triggered at 9:58 by the loss of the 230 kV Torca substation in Bogota due to human error during bus switching. Power was restored by 14:30 local time.
19 April 2007, Costa Rica
Nationwide blackout at 20:10 local time started by the loss of the Arenal-Canas transmission line and affected more than 4 million people in Costa Rica. Power restoration started gradually at 21:45.
