10. September 28th, 2003 Italy Blackout – 57 Million Affected
The power was stopped at 3:20 in the morning on September 28th. All of Italy, with the exceptions of the islands Sardinia and Elba, and parts of Switzerland. Italy was without power for a total of 12 hours while parts of Switzerland were only without power for 3 hours. Nearly all cities had restored power by morning. Rolling blackouts occurred for 5% of the population over the next two days.
The blackout was caused by storm damage to the power lines that supplied power to Italy from Switzerland. The power line tripped and caused an immediate increase in demand from the power lines bringing power between France and Italy. These power lines tripped and a series of events disrupted the power coming to Italy from France and Switzerland. Control of the grid was lost as lines tripped one after the other and the Swiss company ATEL confirmed that the power line bringing power to Italy was out for several hours.
The blackout occurred at a very inopportune time as the night of September 27th is the annual overnight celebration of the Nuit Blanche in Rome which meant that even though the blackout occurred at 3:00 a.m. many people were still out on the streets and using public transportation. The blackout forced the carnival to end early and hundreds of people were trapped in the underground trains. With severe storms, people were left to sleep in train stations and under awnings. All flights were canceled and an additional 30,000 people were stranded on trains.
The 2003 Italy blackout was seen as a failure of interdependent networks and it became the focus of study to determine ways to build networks that were not so interconnected. Several nodes in the network of the power stations failed and caused an internet failure which then caused more power stations to fail, one thing triggered another and proved the vulnerability in modern power grids.
Some Sources For Further Reading:
Medium – Indian Blackouts of July 2012: What Happened and Why?
The Guardian – India blackouts leave 700 million without power
IEEE Spectrum – Northern India Recovering from Huge Blackout
BBC News – Power restored after huge Indian power cut
The New York Time Magazine – Electricity Returns to Bangladesh After Power Failure
UPI – 140 million left without power in Pakistan
The New York Time Magazine – Wide Power Failure Strikes Southern Brazil
The Guardian – Brazilian power cut leaves 60 million in the dark
Energy.Gov – August 2003 Blackout