POWER: San Mateo/San Francisco power outage report

Wed Dec 9 23:56:07 UTC 1998

On Wed, Dec 09, 1998 at 09:04:27AM -0500, Jon Zeeff wrote:
> > grid primary power sources.  Aside from the human error, the system worked
> > "as designed to protect the rest of the grid."
> 
> I suggest that causing a cascade effect and increasing the area of an
> outage isn't a good way to design a system.

I suggest that you don't understand power distribution and transmission
very well.  Just like any other generator, if you load a power station
too heavily, the voltage and the frequency will both be pulled down.

Since the tolerances on public electricity are something like +-5v and
+- .5 Hz., they really have no choice but to break ties when a plant or
segment goes out.  They really shouldn't cross-tie power on a running
basis as much as they probably do... but since the Green folks won't
always let them build plants...

Cheers,
-- jr 'Damn I'm glad I don't run a power company...' a
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth                                                jra at baylink.com
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