Disturbances recorded by power quality monitors during the “West Coast Outage”

On December 14, 1994, a significant portion of the Western System´s Coordinating Council (USA) interconnection experienced an electric power disturbance that affected more than a million customers. The event was widely publicized and was labeled by the media as the “West Coast Outage”. Many trade publications published articles describing how the event unfolded. This paper presents field measurements that were recorded by power quality monitors in the affected region during the disturbance. Included are various power quality anomalies which result from the unusual power flows that developed as the event progressed