The 2003 Italy blackout was a serious power outage that affected all of the Italian Peninsula for 12 hours and part of Switzerland near Geneva for 3 hours on 28 September 2003. It was the largest blackout in the series of blackouts in 2003, involving about 56 million people.
Causes
The sequence of events leading to the outage began around 3am (local time) on 28 September 2003, when the 400 kV Lukmanier powerline between Mettlen and Lavorgo arced to a nearby tree and automatically disabled itself. The line had carried hydroelectric power from Switzerland to Italy, and this current now flowed on parallel lines through France, overloading them.: 4 Those circuits could only stably carry the current for approximately 15 mins, but the Swiss control room operator was not aware of the urgency.: 6 Instead, the operator attempted to re-energize the Lukmanier line, which was impossible because a large phase difference had developed across the line. After repeated failures to re-energize, the operator asked the...
Daniel Stevens
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