Feds to probe FPL's Feb. 26 blackout

[RockaFowler]

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/business/epaper/2008/03/19/0319fploutage.html

The size and scope of last month's power outage in Florida has prompted the federal government to join an investigation into the blackout.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission voted today to join the North America Electric Reliability Corp. and the Florida Reliability Coordinating Council to determine whether Florida Power & Light Co. violated any federal reliability standards during the Feb. 26 incident.

SNIP

FPL has said the outage appeared to be triggered by the error of a single field engineer diagnosing a problem at a substation in Miami-Dade County. In a matter of minutes, it knocked five of the utility's plants offline, including two nuclear reactors, and caused outages for customers of other utility companies around the state.

About 584,000 Florida Power & Light Co. customers, some 1.2 million people, lost power. Almost that many customers of other utilities also were left without electricity for as long as a few hours.

[thunder rising]

1. Sic 'em. Fuck FPL! If there is one crooked way to make a dime they have it covered.