New York ? Every two to 10 seconds, the power grid operator for a group of Mid-Atlantic states collects thousands of measurements on voltage, circuit breaker positions and the like.

Computers at PJM Interconnection summarize the information in graphic form and run what-if scenarios every five to 15 minutes to project whether a hypothetical failure in one component could be catastrophic.

PJM’s equipment, installed just two years ago to do calculations more frequently and thoroughly, is among the more modern monitoring technology on an otherwise rather backward national power grid, where engineers rely primarily on telephones to alert neighboring regional power pools to trouble.

In last week’s massive blackout, the telephone warnings for much of the system came too late or not at all.

Only a small part of PJM’s coverage area was affected.

It’s too early to say whether the systems at PJM, which operates the energy market from New Jersey to West Virginia, were decisive in containing the outage, but the commitment to technology is a sign of where the electricity industry is heading in trying to prevent cascading outages.

Computer systems soon could get smart enough to anticipate a growing tree branch about to rupture a power line, and sensors could detect an insulator about to break, allowing crews to make repairs before equipment overheats, experts say.

“Our vision of the grid of the future is what we are calling the self-healing grid,” said Luther Dow, director of power delivery and markets at the industry-funded Electric Power Research Institute in Palo Alto, Calif. “It’s one that monitors itself, measures itself and even takes corrective action to eliminate reliability problem.”

The FirstEnergy Corp. power plant in Eastlake, Ohio, is at the center of an investigation into last week's power blackout. Industry officials say technological improvements are needed to help anticipate and prevent blackouts.

A self-healing grid is still a decade away, though Dow said technology to anticipate failure already was being tested by some 10 utilities.

IBM Corp. and upstarts like SmartSignal Corp. are working on smarter ways to analyze data, taking advantage of new sensors that communicate wirelessly to permit quicker, cheaper and more extensive information flow.

“There are so many decisions that need to be made so quickly and so many minute pieces of data, it’s too many for the mind to comprehend,” said David Samuel, general manager for IBM Energy & Utilities Industry in Atlanta. “This is about programming the computer to do a lot of the analysis.”

Some improvements have already been made. Instead of presenting raw data in tabular columns that humans must digest, for example, newer systems analyze and summarize the information in rich, graphical displays, said Mike Unum, a manager for automation and network services at GE Power Systems in Melbourne, Fla.

But more still could be done, Unum said.

Citing the pending investigations, utility officials have said little about what role monitoring technology may have played in the blackout.

FirstEnergy Corp., the Ohio utility at the center of probes into the blackout, has acknowledged that at least one component of its computer monitoring system wasn’t working, preventing an alarm from sounding when troubles began.