Network reliability and short-term security: decentralized coordination using demand as a resource

On August 14, 2003, a large blackout occurred in northeastern North America. Precipitated over three hours, this cascading failure affected 50 million people and caused $4-10 billion in economic losses in the U.S. (U.S.–Canada Power System Outage Task Force 2004, p. 1). As often happens with crisis events, it also caused extensive re-examination of decades of electricity reliability policy.