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34-673: Pepco usually refers to the Potomac Electric Power Company. Pepco or PEPCO may also refer to: Pepco The company's current trademarked slogan is "Your life. Plugged in." Its former slogan was "We're connected to you by more than power lines." Pepco's bulk transmission system consists of transmission lines operating at 115 kV, 138kV, 230 kV and 500 kV. Pepco has interconnections with Potomac Edison (230kV, 500kV), Baltimore Gas and Electric (500kV, 230kV, 115kV), and Dominion Virginia Power (500kV, 230kV). The company's predecessor, Potomac Electric Co.,

68-402: A powercut , a power out , a power failure , a power blackout , a power loss , or a blackout ) is the loss of the electrical power network supply to an end user . There are many causes of power failures in an electricity network. Examples of these causes include faults at power stations , damage to electric transmission lines , substations or other parts of the distribution system,

102-508: A short circuit , cascading failure , fuse or circuit breaker operation. Power failures are particularly critical at sites where the environment and public safety are at risk. Institutions such as hospitals , sewage treatment plants , and mines will usually have backup power sources such as standby generators , which will automatically start up when electrical power is lost. Other critical systems, such as telecommunication , are also required to have emergency power. The battery room of

136-555: A Supreme Court decision upholding the order. As a result, Pepco's stock was distributed to Washington Railway's shareholders in December 1947, making Pepco an independent, publicly traded company. In 1954, revenue exceeded $ 50 million for the first time. In 1969, the company suspended its dividend due to rising costs. In 1980, the company cancelled plans to build a $ 930 million power plant in Montgomery County as

170-486: A hearing in October 2018 to examine " black start ", the process of restoring electricity after a system-wide power loss. The hearing's purpose was for Congress to learn about what the backup plans are in the electric utility industry in the case that the electric grid is damaged. Threats to the electrical grid include cyberattacks, solar storms, and severe weather, among others. For example, the " Northeast Blackout of 2003 "

204-539: A holding company that owned many public utilities, gained control of Washington Railway and Electric. The Public Utility Holding Company Act was enacted in 1935 to force the breakup of large utility holding companies. Under this law, the Securities and Exchange Commission in 1942 ordered the North American Company and its subsidiaries to split up. A years-long legal battle ensued, culminating in

238-478: A newly formed holding company, Pepco Holdings . In 2003, Pepco's investment subsidiary, Potomac Capital Investment, was transferred to Pepco Holdings. In 2014, Pepco Holdings agreed to be acquired by Exelon for $ 6.8 billion. The deal faced opposition from Pepco customers and from officials in Washington and Maryland, but was ultimately approved. The acquisition was completed on March 23, 2016, making Pepco

272-400: A result of reduced demand. In September 1995, the company announced a merger with Baltimore Gas & Electric; however, the merger was cancelled in December 1997. In 2001, Pepco agreed to acquire Conectiv Power Delivery, the parent company of Delmarva Power and Atlantic City Electric, for $ 2.2 billion. The purchase was completed in 2002, with Pepco and Conectiv becoming subsidiaries of

306-403: A subsidiary of Exelon. In 2011, Business Insider named the company first on its list of "The 19 Most Hated Companies In America" based on its American Customer Satisfaction Index rating. An investigation by The Washington Post in 2010 faulted Pepco for poor reliability. The report noted that the company's performance had slipped since 2005, comparing poorly to other major utilities in

340-562: A telephone exchange usually has arrays of lead–acid batteries for backup and also a socket for connecting a generator during extended periods of outage. During a power outage, there is a disruption in the supply of electricity, resulting in a loss of power to homes, businesses, and other facilities. Power outages can occur for various reasons, including severe weather conditions (such as storms, hurricanes, or blizzards), equipment failure, grid overload, or planned maintenance. Power outages are categorized into three different phenomena, relating to

374-613: A wide-area outage can be difficult, as power stations need to be brought back online. Normally, this is done with the help of power from the rest of the grid. In the total absence of grid power, a so-called black start needs to be performed to bootstrap the power grid into operation. The means of doing so will depend greatly on local circumstances and operational policies, but typically transmission utilities will establish localized 'power islands' which are then progressively coupled together. To maintain supply frequencies within tolerable limits during this process, demand must be reconnected at

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408-466: Is a tendency to erode the resilience of the network over time, which is only corrected after a major failure occurs. In a 2003 publication, Carreras and co-authors claimed that reducing the likelihood of small outages only increases the likelihood of larger ones. In that case, the short-term economic benefit of keeping the individual customer happy increases the likelihood of large-scale blackouts. The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources held

442-480: The 2019 California power shutoffs ). In power supply networks , the power generation and the electrical load (demand) must be very close to equal every second to avoid overloading of network components, which can severely damage them. Protective relays and fuses are used to automatically detect overloads and to disconnect circuits at risk of damage. Under certain conditions, a network component shutting down can cause current fluctuations in neighboring segments of

476-536: The California electricity crisis of 2000–2001, when government deregulation destabilized the wholesale electricity market. Blackouts are also used as a public safety measure, such as to prevent a gas leak from catching fire (for example, power was cut to several towns in response to the Merrimack Valley gas explosions ), or to prevent wildfires around poorly maintained transmission lines (such as during

510-452: The OPA blackout model: In addition to the finding of each mitigation strategy having a cost-benefit relationship with regards to frequency of small and large blackouts, the total number of blackout events was not significantly reduced by any of the above-mentioned mitigation measures. A complex network-based model to control large cascading failures (blackouts) using local information only

544-513: The University of Wisconsin (PSerc), and the University of Alaska Fairbanks proposed a mathematical model for the behavior of electrical distribution systems. This model has become known as the OPA model, a reference to the names of the authors' institutions. OPA is a cascading failure model. Other cascading failure models include Manchester, Hidden failure, CASCADE, and Branching. The OPA model

578-480: The Washington Traction and Electric Company , one of the private streetcar companies in Washington. On December 17, 1896, after a court battle, the company received a contract to light the city of Washington, D.C. In January 1889, the company merged with its rival, United States Electric Lighting Company . In 1899, the company merged with Washington Traction and Electric Company. In June 1901,

612-509: The basic operation of the grid must be changed. The Electric Power Research Institute champions the use of smart grid features such as power control devices employing advanced sensors to coordinate the grid. Others advocate greater use of electronically controlled high-voltage direct current (HVDC) firebreaks to prevent disturbances from cascading across AC lines in a wide area grid . In 2002, researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Power System Engineering Research Center of

646-709: The company agreed to pay regulators $ 1.6 million for violations of the Clean Water Act . In October 2023, Pepco agreed to pay $ 47 million in costs and $ 10 million in penalties to D.C. for decades of discharging toxic chemicals in the city, affecting the Anacostia River and other areas. In March 2022, the D.C. Office of the Attorney General and the Office of the People’s Counsel alleged Pepco

680-698: The company filed for bankruptcy and was acquired by the Washington Railway and Electric Company. In 1905, revenues exceeded $ 1 million for the first time. In 1906, the company began construction of the first unit of the Benning Road Power Plant , along the Anacostia River. When its last unit was completed in 1931, the power plant had a 185,000-kilowatt capacity. In 1928, the North American Company ,

714-466: The critical point the relationship between blackout frequency and size follows a power-law distribution. Cascading failure becomes much more common close to this critical point. The power-law relationship is seen in both historical data and model systems. The practice of operating these systems much closer to their maximum capacity leads to magnified effects of random, unavoidable disturbances due to aging, weather, human interaction etc. While near

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748-463: The critical point will experience too many blackouts leading to system-wide upgrades moving it back below the critical point. The term critical point of the system is used here in the sense of statistical physics and nonlinear dynamics, representing the point where a system undergoes a phase transition ; in this case the transition from a steady reliable grid with few cascading failures to a very sporadic unreliable grid with common cascading failures. Near

782-467: The critical point, these failures have a greater effect on the surrounding components due to individual components carrying a larger load. This results in the larger load from the failing component having to be redistributed in larger quantities across the system, making it more likely for additional components not directly affected by the disturbance to fail, igniting costly and dangerous cascading failures. These initial disturbances causing blackouts are all

816-412: The duration and effect of the outage: Rolling blackouts occur when demand for electricity exceeds supply, and allow some customers to receive power at the required voltage at the expense of other customers who get no power at all. They are a common occurrence in developing countries , and may be scheduled in advance or occur without warning. They have also occurred in developed countries, for example in

850-399: The economics of running a power company, and the limits of modern engineering. While blackout frequency has been shown to be reduced by operating it further from its critical point, it generally is not economically feasible, causing providers to increase the average load over time or upgrade less often resulting in the grid moving itself closer to its critical point. Conversely, a system past

884-565: The frequency and duration of power outages . Thousands of people lost power for as many as five days after only 5–8 inches of heavy wet snow. During the June 2012 North American derecho , more than half of the customers in Montgomery County, Maryland lost electric power. The company was criticized for being slow to restore power and for charging its customers for the power outage. The company's Benning Road Power Plant produced air pollution that negatively affected neighboring communities. In 2017,

918-407: The more unexpected and unavoidable due to actions of the power suppliers to prevent obvious disturbances (cutting back trees, separating lines in windy areas, replacing aging components etc.). The complexity of most power grids often makes the initial cause of a blackout extremely hard to identify. Leaders are dismissive of system theories that conclude that blackouts are inevitable, but do agree that

952-444: The network leading to a cascading failure of a larger section of the network. This may range from a building, to a block, to an entire city, to an entire electrical grid . Modern power systems are designed to be resistant to this sort of cascading failure, but it may be unavoidable (see below). Moreover, since there is no short-term economic benefit to preventing rare large-scale failures, researchers have expressed concern that there

986-449: The same pace that generation is restored, requiring close coordination between power stations, transmission and distribution organizations. It has been argued on the basis of historical data and computer modeling that power grids are self-organized critical systems . These systems exhibit unavoidable disturbances of all sizes, up to the size of the entire system. This phenomenon has been attributed to steadily increasing demand/load,

1020-411: The use of an uninterruptible power supply or 'UPS' can provide a constant flow of electricity if a primary power supply becomes unavailable for a short period of time. To protect against surges (events where voltages increase for a few seconds), which can damage hardware when power is restored, a special device called a surge protector that absorbs the excess voltage can be used. Restoring power after

1054-479: Was caused when overgrown trees touched high-voltage power lines. Around 55 million people in the U.S. and Canada lost power, and restoring it cost around $ 6 billion. Computer systems and other electronic devices containing logic circuitry are susceptible to data loss or hardware damage that can be caused by the sudden loss of power. These can include data networking equipment, video projectors, alarm systems as well as computers. To protect computer systems against this,

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1088-464: Was committing a "pattern of systemic violations" in carrying out community solar panel installations. According to the complaint, Pepco has botched its handling of community solar projects in numerous ways. The utility is undercounting solar energy generation at community solar projects, according to the filing, and is “systematically failing” to provide accurate and timely solar credits to customers. Power outage A power outage (also called

1122-598: Was organized in 1891 to provide street lighting and streetcar power in Georgetown and Northwest D.C. After suffering during the Panic of 1893 , the company filed bankruptcy and, on November 6, 1895, was acquired by Oscar T. Crosby and Charles A. Lieb for $ 5,500. The company was incorporated as Potomac Electric Power Company on April 28, 1896 in Virginia. It became a subsidiary of the North American Company , which owned

1156-576: Was quantitatively compared with a complex networks model of a cascading failure – Crucitti–Latora–Marchiori (CLM) model, showing that both models exhibit similar phase transitions in the average network damage (load shed/demand in OPA, path damage in CLM), with respect to transmission capacity. The effects of trying to mitigate cascading failures near the critical point in an economically feasible fashion are often shown to not be beneficial and often even detrimental. Four mitigation methods have been tested using

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