System reliability revisited

Can the electric power industry provide the service demanded by society without major changes in our functional engineering relationships? Recent engineering advancements in industrial and illuminating loads, plus the economy of scale in the design of the electrical system, bring this question to the forefront. The authors argue that, today, with modern technology available for both enhancing power system security and updating operating parameters on a more dynamic basis, former limits for secure operation should be capable of improved definition, sufficient to reduce the frequency of area-wide disturbances by an order of magnitude.