Energy oversight body to pay $16M penalty for 2011 blackout
An electricity grid oversight body will pay $16 million to settle a dispute with the federal government over its role in a 2011 power outage in California, Arizona and Mexico.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) announced its settlement with the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) on Tuesday.
WECC was the “reliability coordinator” for the western United States when a transmission line failure triggered a blackout on Sept. 8, 2011. More than 5 million people in southern California, Arizona and Baja California, Mexico lost power during the incident, according to FERC, some for up to 12 hours.
