When the grid was the grid: the history of north america's brief coast-to-coast interconnected machine [scanning our past]

From 1967 to 1975, a single, giant, interconnecting machine linked together the vast majority of power users in North America. Called the grid , this collection of generators, transmission lines, substations, and related infrastructure operated in near-perfect synchrony to deliver electricity across the continent. Many had envisioned a coast-to-coast grid for decades, but the project was hindered by cost, competing jurisdictions, a wide array of stakeholders with nonaligned interests, and especially technological barriers. Building this machine was an engineering accomplishment of the highest order. 1 But operating the machine was another matter. Though brief within the now long history of electrification, this eight-year period marked a pinnacle of achievement for American engineers and system operators and a phase of instability for the machine itself.