So what does this say about our power infrastructure
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So what does this say about our power infrastructure
10-08-2019 6:47 AM
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Power cuts! Didn't affect me but doesn't bode well really. Seems they lost 2 generators and the whole system started to fall over. Sounds more like lack of back up capacity and sailing along with some hope on the wings of a prayer.
It just shows how reliant we are on power nowadays. No power, no any!

Re: So what does this say about our power infrastructure
10-08-2019 6:51 AM
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It says that the grid did exactly what it was designed to do, balance loads by cutting off sections of the grid in the event of a generator failure to prevent a nationwide grid collapse...
It's just being blown out of proportion as usual by the media, "Much of the UK", meaning londoners were inconvenienced, while the rest of the country didn't notice a thing, it's no worse than what happens after a hefty storm blowing over the country, it's just the boy crying wolf again...
Re: So what does this say about our power infrastructure
10-08-2019 7:10 AM
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Seems Newcastle was also affected, so not just London and SE. I'd agree with the grid doing what it did to protect itself but losing just 2 generators. Must have been big ones. Still, be okay today. Plenty of wind about.

Re: So what does this say about our power infrastructure
10-08-2019 7:31 AM
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Newcastle airport, some areas around it, not really much of an issue to be honest, biggest powercut round here recently was when lightning struck Pontop Pike (or the powerlines beside it) and took out a hefty chunk of the grid at about 3am, but that lasted all of 5 minutes, the endless house alarms on the other hand though.......
And as for just two generators, well, it was a friday, it was around a very busy time of day (hometime rush hour), lots of electrical things being used, so a high load time for the grid, and in areas of highly concentrated grid-sapping, they had to shut things off, better a day of disruption to a few than months of trying to get the grid back up and working again just so some grumpy commuters could get home...
Re: So what does this say about our power infrastructure
10-08-2019 7:34 AM
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@twocvbloke wrote:
It says that the grid did exactly what it was designed to do, balance loads by cutting off sections of the grid in the event of a generator failure to prevent a nationwide grid collapse...
It's just being blown out of proportion as usual by the media, "Much of the UK", meaning londoners were inconvenienced, while the rest of the country didn't notice a thing, it's no worse than what happens after a hefty storm blowing over the country, it's just the boy crying wolf again...
@twocvbloke That is the nature of media. I suppose they were at it in the time of clay tablets and papyri. The effect was far more extensive, with London rail termini unable to deal with electric trains in or out during the afternoon peak. Many trains run well beyond the inner commuter belt, strangely full of commuters.
Re: So what does this say about our power infrastructure
10-08-2019 7:48 AM
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On the plus side, at least we have the grid, once upon a time the UK was reliant on small power stations within towns and cities, and provided electricity at their own whim, not to mention at varying voltages, frequencies, or whether it was AC or DC, what plugs & sockets they supplied, price, underground, overground (wombling free), just a right old mess really, and no interconnectivity to supply another place that has lost power to keep them up and running, the grid is a fantastic system...
Relatively speaking, yesterday was a minor event, it could have been far, far worse I'm sure, a cascade failure for one as areas tripped out due to under-powering from the failed generators, and as they went off other generators tripping out too as they went into over-run, resulting in more tripping of areas, etc., all in all the national grid did an excellent job at keeping the power on for the majority of the UK, and they should be praised for it...
Re: So what does this say about our power infrastructure
10-08-2019 8:04 AM
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Do I detect a slight bias towards the power industries?
Re: So what does this say about our power infrastructure
10-08-2019 8:10 AM
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I've been fascinated with electricity ever since I first stuck my finger into a lamp socket that was live, and also quite scared of it even today, no association with them, nor any Part-P paperwork to say I'm competent to work with the stuff after a week long course, I'm just someone who likes electricity, from low voltage DC stuff to the big boys power supplies that bite back if you mess with them...

Re: So what does this say about our power infrastructure
10-08-2019 9:29 AM
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I’m with @twocvbloke on this one, they did what they did for damage limitation. The NG is a finely balanced instrument and if a generation unit (GU) goes offline replacing their capacity isn’t easy. If you lose 500MW off the grid you need to replace it, but getting an idle GU to come online will take a finite amount of time. So you could ask the existing GUs to take up the slack and produce more power but you need to work out which ones, the NG Control then sends them dispatch instructions to ramp up by X MW, which again takes time. It’s a bit like driving a car at 60 MPH then heading on to a motorway so you need to increase your speed to 70 but even that’s not instant regardless of how fast your car is, and if you do that wrong there could be consequences.

Re: So what does this say about our power infrastructure
10-08-2019 9:32 AM
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Hi twocvbloke
That's America in the UK the Grid use 400kv for the Super Grid and Regional suppliers use 132/66/32/11KV there was a 6.6kv but that has be fazed out
That's hot stick work and the cherry picker is fully insulated so the workers are safe like a bird sitting on the line
Seems like the fault was automatic load shedding due the frequency dropping but it will be interesting to find out exactly what happened
Brian A
Re: So what does this say about our power infrastructure
10-08-2019 9:38 AM
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It is indeed in the US, but it's still amazing to see, I'm amazed that cherry picker has the strength to hold the weight of that guy's balls (and probably the contents of his bowels too) having that electric dragon in his face like that...
Re: So what does this say about our power infrastructure
10-08-2019 10:00 AM
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So from my reading 'most of the UK' means 1 million out of 67 million. This outage apparantly lasted for 48 minutes. The fact that commuters were delayed for hours through a lack of train services says more about contingency planning and management of the railways than the power industry.
The question has to be how much spare capacity we consumers want to pay for that is already spinning and ready to take up load in case of one of these extremely rare events occurs? Personally I'm impressed that this shortfall was replaced and power restored in such a short time and think that the power industry should be commended, not criticised.
Re: So what does this say about our power infrastructure
10-08-2019 10:17 AM
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Yet again the Daily Mail tries to stir things up by using inflammatory language, exaggeration, and starting rumours:
Re: So what does this say about our power infrastructure
10-08-2019 10:17 AM
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If the transport networks in the UK had the same level of management that the national grid has, there wouldn't have been such a farce with trains stopping and whatnot...
Re: So what does this say about our power infrastructure
10-08-2019 10:37 AM
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@ffox wrote:
Yet again the Daily Mail tries to stir things up by using inflammatory language, exaggeration, and starting rumours:
Fury at power cut that brought Britain to its knees: Government launches probe into mystery simultaneous failure of wind farm and gas-fired power station as officials insist there is 'no evidence' of a cyber attack
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