When the dust settled and an investigation ensued, it was learned that the outage had a number of causes, including a lack of system monitoring by FirstEnergy of Ohio and the Midwest Independent System Operator (MISO), and inadequate awareness of the depth of the problem by the American operators.

The chances of a similar scenario occurring are greatly reduced, now that reliability standards are in place across the North American electricity system, an industry spokesperson said Monday.

"We now have continent-wide mandatory and enforceable reliability standards," said Alexandra Campbell of the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO). IESO is a not-for-profit corporate entity established in 1998 by the Electricity Act of Ontario with full statute-based authority for establishing, monitoring and enforcing reliability standards in Ontario. While such standards have been in place in Ontario since 2002, it wasn't until last year that the rest of the electric systems in North America were included.

"There's been a lot of work in the industry since then," Campbell said of the 2003 blackout. Rules around tree trimming and protocol and procedures in control rooms have been tightened, the training of transmission and system operators has been upgraded and audits have been performed to ensure that standards are being followed. Financial penalties face operators who don't meet the new and improved standards.

Even so, Campbell acknowledges that there is no ironclad guarantee that a blackout of the same magnitude as the 2003 outage will never happen again. "There are a lot more standards in place to make it less likely to happen again," she said.

While the 2003 event is a distant memory to many, including residents of Flamborough and the Hamilton area, the City of Hamilton marked its fifth anniversary by participating in the Blackout Challenge. Initiated last year by the City of Woodstock, the Challenge urges Ontario municipalities to reduce energy consumption between the hours of 12 (noon) and 8 p.m. on the anniversary date. This year's reduction goal is four per cent.

Last year, Hamilton came out on top of participating municipalities, cutting energy reduction by 2.2 per cent and trimming daily peak demand by about 3.2 per cent during the eight-hour period. Non-essential lights were turned off in the city's corporate facilities and power was reduced in the city's water treatment plant.

Last November, Hamilton adopted a corporate energy policy aimed at providing new strategies in the operation of the city's facilities that will bring energy conservation and demand management to the forefront of the decision-making process. The energy policy calls for a 20 per cent energy reduction in city-owned facilities by 2020.

On March 29, Hamilton was among Canadian cities that took part in Earth Hour, a global campaign taking action against climate change.

Horizon Utilities Corporation, which provides electricity and related utility services to 233,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers in Hamilton and St. Catharines, also participated in a couple of events this week to promote energy conservation. On Tuesday, Horizon and YWCA Hamilton partnered to launch the first summer day camp program focused on energy safety and conservation and on Wednesday, the utility company welcomed representatives from local businesses to LIUNA Station to learn more about reducing energy and operating costs.

At the summer camp, children were to participate in hands-on science experiments including the making of a circuit to light an LED bulb and learning to use a meter to measure the wattage required to power common household appliances. At the business information seminar, details about the Electricity Retrofit Incentive Program (ERIP) were presented. ERIP is an electricity 'tune-up' program that rewards businesses with incentive rebates for upgrading facilities and equipment to use less energy. Eligible projects include retrofitting lighting fixtures or replacing HVAC components or motors with more energy efficient models.

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Review reporter Catherine O'Hara asked local residents how their energy conservation efforts have changed in the five years since the 2003 blackout. Here's what they had to say...

KELLY ZEREBNY: Our lights are on timers.

CAROL SMITH: We have redone the basement with new insulation and so forth. It was a major (renovation). Of course, it's not finished, but we do have it insulated finally, and we have noticed that our bills have been cut because of it.

DENISE DRYDEN: I hang the laundry out more. We make sure that the lights are off and the TV is off when we aren't using them, the computer when we aren't using it, which we never used to do and we burn more firewood in the winter.

ROB LEVESQUE: We've changed all our coolers in the store (Ray's Variety). I shut off the fridges early, about two hours before going home.