Human error caused Tuesday’s massive blackout across Florida, said Armando Olivera, president of Florida capability & Light, said today.

At 1:08 p.m. Tuesday, a without field engineer working at the Flagami substation in western Miami-Dade County disabled a pair of safeguards that would have confined the outage to a few thousand customers, whether any.

Instead, 584,000 FPL customers lost potential, as did more than 200,000 customers in the Tampa Bay area.
The employee has been suspended with pay pending the outcome a

The problem caused several ability plants to shut down, including FPL’s two nuclear reactors at Turkey Point, 25 miles south of Miami.

FPL plus lost a large natural gas capability plant at Turkey Point, and two other small capability plants at other locations.

Tampa Electric lost capability from two small natural gas plants. In all, 3,400-megawatts of generation was lost within several minutes.

Asjylyn Loder, Times staff writer

Original post by Times Editor