Cable Forum - Major power outage hits the country

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Re: Major power outage hits the country

Quote:

Originally Posted by GrimUpNorth (Post 36005544)

So that's why one of the eight lamps in the kitchen was out when I got home this evening? ;)

It didn't like 49hz as much as the rest. ;)

Re: Major power outage hits the country

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sephiroth (Post 36005548)

And the other question is why they are running so close to capacity?

What makes you think they are ?

If a geneator (or two) fail, its not a case of just flicking a switch and another kicks in - it takes time.

Re: Major power outage hits the country

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul M (Post 36005550)

What makes you think they are ?

If a generator (or two) fail, its not a case of just flicking a switch and another kicks in - it takes time.

I can't be 100% sure of what National Grid have done - I imagine a number of generating sources are offline for summer maintenance. I thus suspect this has taken us close to capacity and voila widespread outage if two feeds go phut.

This shouldn't have happened with just two failures.

Re: Major power outage hits the country

Quote:

Originally Posted by jfman (Post 36005537)

I don’t see why you have to insert quotation marks around traffic lights. That’s what they are. I also doubt they are plugged into the same domestic mains supply as homes nearby, but happy to be proven wrong. How different parts of the network coped with the dip will vary depending on many factors in the infrastructure.

It would be a bizarre coincidence for it to happen at the exact same time the entire grid experienced problems and be unrelated.

If there is a power outage, on a grid or DNO scale, then there is power loss across everything regardless. Unless you have battery or generator back up.

Traffic lights would not go out and shops and domestic supplies be unaffected.[COLOR="Silver"]

Quote:

Passengers were shut out of some of the country’s busiest train stations during the Friday evening rush hour, while hundreds of thousands of homes were left without electricity after what the National Grid described as a problem with two generators.

The British Transport police said officers were asked to help as services on the east coast mainline were suspended, with many customers being advised not to travel; and London’s Euston station, the southern hub for the west coast mainline, was closed because of “exceptionally high passenger numbers”. The outage was reportedly also affecting other rail services and traffic lights.

Shortly before 6.30pm, a National Grid spokesperson said the generator issues had caused “loss of power in selected UK areas”. The spokesperson said the issue was “now resolved” and the system had returned to normal

About 500,000 customers in Wales, south-west England and the Midlands were affected and 300,000 customers in south-east England were left without power, the local distributors said. A further 110,000 in Yorkshire and north-east England were affected, alongside about 26,000 in north-west England, according to the electricity distributors in those areas.
__________________

Was that all in Glasgow?

Re: Major power outage hits the country

It's the hospital back up genny that failed that's so scary.

Re: Major power outage hits the country

Link

Quote:

On Friday evening, there were reports that the problems may have been caused by
issues at a gas-fired power station – and at a wind farm off the coast of Yorkshire.
‘What happened is a major offshore wind generation site and a gas turbine failed at the
same time,’ Devrim Celal, of Upside Energy in London, a contractor with National Grid,
was reported saying. ‘There was a significant shortage of generation, and that sudden
drop created ripple effects across the country.’

What are the chances of a Wind Farm producing no power.:rolleyes:

Re: Major power outage hits the country

Quote:

Originally Posted by nomadking (Post 36005562)

Link

What are the chances of a Wind Farm producing no power.:rolleyes:
[/LEFT]

Easy, no wind = no power, too much wind = no power as they feather the blades.

Re: Major power outage hits the country

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pierre (Post 36005555)

So you are claiming that traffic lights, airports, railways all had isolated power outages around the exact same time of day yet were unlinked because if it was a national issue my TV would have gone off?

The power supply didn’t fall to zero. It fell out of tolerance which could affect different items and parts of the network in ways. Some of it failing, some of it not.

Re: Major power outage hits the country

The Grid’s automatic protection against a drop in frequency is to cut power to one or more of the distribution networks connected to it. This is what caused such widespread disruption. Within any given distribution area, critical systems might have continued to function if they were equipped with a working backup power supply.

There are no reports of either of the main Scottish distribution networks being severed from the Grid last night, so I’d say traffic light failures in Glasgow were a coincidence, unconnected to the general failure at National Grid.

Re: Major power outage hits the country

Quote:

Originally Posted by jfman (Post 36005573)

No, I’m claiming what Chris said ^^^

Re: Major power outage hits the country

I suspect, like the water industry, since privatisation redundancy measures have been cut back to increase profitability.

It's viewed as an inefficient use of resources if something is unlikely or to seldom happen.

Re: Major power outage hits the country

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sephiroth (Post 36005522)

What? Macbeth?

"Hot potato, off his drawers, Puck will make amends!"

Re: Major power outage hits the country

Quote:

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter (Post 36005612)

It's viewed as an inefficient use of resources if something is unlikely or to seldom happen.

Well that would be because it is.

For the same reason most people in the UK dont have Air Con.

The loss of two systems within minutes is a very rare occurance.
The cutoff plan kicked in as intended, power was restored within 45 minutes.

Perhaps you would prefer to pay more for your electricity to cover this rare occurance ?

Re: Major power outage hits the country

I’m still laughing at people going snowflake over the loss of power for a couple of hours. While it’s better here than it used to be, over the first 5-6 years here there would be a handful of power cuts every year, usually for an hour or more. If we get a really good storm, even these days, we can lose it for a couple of days. Twice, we’ve lost it for five.

Re: Major power outage hits the country

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris (Post 36005809)

I think everyone may have forgotten the 3 day week when power cuts were a regular planned occurence. Also no TV after 10.30pm at the outset.