|
Post by papaof2 on Oct 16, 2023 20:31:50 GMT -6
Yet another "no-see-um" in the local power grid. Instant power off at 9:53PM. The entire sunstation was down (blocks of 879, 457, 477 for 1813 meters total) plus another substation North and West of us for 997 meters 2810 total meters). We were back up at 10:01. Back down again for less than a minute at 10:03.
Other folks may have been searching for lights but there's a "power out" light in the dining room and another one in the kitchen so we're not in total darkness. The pure sine wave UPS for the A/V cabinet keeps the TV going for 45 minutes or so and there's a USB LED strip plugged into the USB port on that TV so there's light on the wall behind the TV (easier on your eyes) and there's light in the room when power is off.
I grabbed a rechargeable head light (one of the Vont lights that was a deal on Woot some months ago) from the dining table so I could see my way to turn on rechargeable lights in other rooms - and to the solar-charged backup system if the power stayed off 15 minutes or more - there's a wind-up timer by the stove for that ;-)
With a few backup lights on, I checked the power co-op's outage page and all three feeds from our substation were down. There's also a substation that's on the edge of what our substation feeds and it was out at the same time (that's twice we've had an event involving both substations at the same time - maybe a basis for a story?)
15 minutes later, all is quiet. The only outage is one North and West of us that is 5 days, 11 hours, 41 minutes stale.
The rechargeable lights we used are back on charge for the next time.
|
|
|
Post by papaof2 on Oct 19, 2023 17:42:24 GMT -6
I've mentioned the power co-op's less-than-useful power outage page multiple times. I think this screenshot might be an excellent bad example. www.jecarter.us/files/bad-co-op.jpg"9 active outages" - I see 5. "0 customers affected" - I see 5 and a click on an outage on the original page gets the failure time and how long down (days, hours, minutes). The outage at Willow Creek (near the center of the image) is 8 days, 9 hours and counting.
|
|
|
Post by papaof2 on Oct 29, 2023 15:51:12 GMT -6
An "incident" has caused a 733 meter power outage in Rising Fawn, Georgia. Never heard of it? Unless you drove the roads that are now I59 about 50 years ago, you probably wouldn't have noticed. Back then, the Rising Fawn telephone exchange was in a brick building about the size of a nice bathroom, had "Rising Fawn Telephone" on the building in metal letters and was visible from the highway. What? You never heard of somebody being built like a brick...
|
|
|
Post by feralferret on Oct 29, 2023 21:24:17 GMT -6
Considering that the population there during the last census was:
Stats and Demographics for the 30738 ZIP Code Population 3,799 Population Density 44 Housing Units 1,930
That would mean a pretty good sized chunk of the town is dark.
|
|
|
Post by papaof2 on Oct 30, 2023 13:11:40 GMT -6
Probably correct. Pull up the 2020 Census for "people per household" (whatever their designation is) and you might be able to calculate close to the actual number.
733 meters / 1930 housing units = 37.97% of those "housing units" without power.
Had that been a bigger place with the same level of outage, it would have been in the news with "xx,xxx people without power in <wherever>"
The name is historical: Rising Fawn, named for the child of a Cherokee chieftain.
|
|
|
Post by feralferret on Oct 30, 2023 18:10:23 GMT -6
Evergy is having a good day. 13 of the 14 outages are one customer. The other is two customers.
Active Outages 14
Total Customers Out 15
Total Customers Served 1,658,629
|
|
|
Post by papaof2 on Nov 10, 2023 9:24:44 GMT -6
Our power co-op has "8 Active Outages" with "0 Customers Affected" but the map has 4 outage markers, each with 1 customer outage.
You think maybe they have a kid in pre-school creating their outage page and doing the counting so that 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 8 outages and 0 customers affected?
|
|
|
Post by papaof2 on Nov 10, 2023 9:31:20 GMT -6
Cloudy day but otherwise not much going on weather-wise - but Georgia Power has 199 meters out in Atlanta from a tree down.
How good are your neighbors about having trees trimmed or removed?
|
|
|
Post by feralferret on Nov 10, 2023 14:12:16 GMT -6
Cloudy day but otherwise not much going on weather-wise - but Georgia Power has 199 meters out in Atlanta from a tree down. How good are your neighbors about having trees trimmed or removed? Not very good. I have been very diligent for 22 years, even though the power company was of almost no help. This year I have not been able to use my pole saw to keep the trees on the highway right of way side of my back fence cut back. Since I will be moving soon, I'll just make sure that the generator is one of the last things I move. I have begged for many years for the power company to totally remove those trees. They grow about 20 to 25 feet per year and are about four to five inches in diameter. I had been keeping them cutoff at five feet tall, the height of the right of way fence. The utility poles are on the fence line. The outage numbers must be some of that "fuzzy math".
|
|
|
Post by papaof2 on Nov 10, 2023 14:46:16 GMT -6
That's the "new math" that's so hard to do that you need a calculator and at some point only the govt approved calculator will be accepted for money math. They will have near-instant wireless updates so anything the .gov does to reduce the value of your money will be hidden from you and only printouts from "current" versions of those calculators will be accepted when there is a question about money.
|
|
|
Post by papaof2 on Nov 16, 2023 12:17:01 GMT -6
Georgia Power screwed up a repair during the night.
A little after midnight, they had 3 very close together outages that were 154, 131 and "Less than 5" meters. The ERT then was 3:15AM.
It's now 1:10PM. the "Outage Details" are: "An outage has been reported in your area. We are working to determine a restoration time." "Emergency repairs required an outage. We are working to determine a restoration time." "An outage has been reported in your area. We are working to determine a restoration time."
and the ERTs are "Assessing Condition", "Assessing Condition" and "Assessing Condition".
Doesn't that give you warm fuzzies about the state's largest power company?
|
|
|
Post by feralferret on Nov 16, 2023 18:31:22 GMT -6
We had a hiccup in the power this afternoon while gone to pick up our grocery orders. It apparently was very short and only affected one of the two legs of power. Everything including the microwave was unaffected on the one leg. The cable TV DVR and my computer were on the other leg that was affected. The DVR crashed while rebooting, as usual. My computer, which at the present is not on my UPS which I need to work on, has been suspended before we left. When I got home it was powered off as it would be after a power interruption.
It only took me four tries to get the DVR to reload and reboot properly this time. The previous two times that it was screwed up by a power glitch it took over 15 attempts before it finally fully booted without erroring out during the process. One of those was way over 15 with me spending over three hours on the phone with tech support. At least their tech support is in Texas, not India.
|
|
|
Post by papaof2 on Nov 16, 2023 19:59:01 GMT -6
I once had the PC/printer warehouse for an international consulting company. At one point in time, all their laptop computers were HP. I had the "pleasure" of dealing with an HP "support" person in India who could not get the delivery address spelling correct EVEN WITH PHONETIC SPELLING. I wrote HP corporate a long letter about their (lack of) support using the consulting company's corporate identity - paper letters generally get more attention than emails ;-)
I didn't get a direct response to the letter, but the next time I called HP support the person I talked to understood a US sports team pun that certainly would have careened off their India support team: that's one way to determine who you're talking to.
The DVR has always recovered from power hits, but it takes several minutes. Yet another reason for the pure sine wave UPS that serves the TV, cable box/DVR, BluRay player, DVD recorder/player, VCR and the Android internet box. The $124.99 for that UPS (one of the few I've purchased new, but it was on sale in August of 2016 ;-) was insurance for the then $600 50" plasma TV, $150 DVD recorder/player, $100 BluRay player and the 30 year service anniversary gift of an all-in-one mini entertainment system: 5 CD changer, cassette tape player/recorder, AM/FM stereo radio - and an audio input that's switchable to any device (TV, DVD, etc) for very good sound with a movie from any source. Cheap insurance for the number of years the UPS has been in service and it's still working ;-) $124.99 / 7 years = $17.86/year. Pretty good for insurance on that much electronics and it ensures you can see the last 15 minutes of some championship game if the power goes out at a bad time (last game of the Atlanta Braves in the 2021 World Series) ;-)
|
|
|
Post by papaof2 on Nov 17, 2023 6:38:58 GMT -6
Georgia Power screwed up a repair during the night. A little after midnight, they had 3 very close together outages that were 154, 131 and "Less than 5" meters. The ERT then was 3:15AM. It's now 1:10PM. the "Outage Details" are: "An outage has been reported in your area. We are working to determine a restoration time." "Emergency repairs required an outage. We are working to determine a restoration time." "An outage has been reported in your area. We are working to determine a restoration time." and the ERTs are "Assessing Condition", "Assessing Condition" and "Assessing Condition". Doesn't that give you warm fuzzies about the state's largest power company? At 7:30AM the next day, that status is: The "outage" is now 4 outages affecting 248 meters. The 154 meters is still the same. The 131 meters is now 84 meters. The "Less than 5" is still the same. There's a new group of 8 meters. All of them have "Assessing Condition". So far, it's more than 27 hours past their original ERT of 3:15AM yesterday for the entire area. Just how bad is it in that older section of the City of Atlanta where they might be dealing with patches on patches on patches? Standard electrical practice is to replace powerlines after 50 years of service. From us to the substation was done in the past 10+/- years. Good to know that your utilities are being maintained ;-)
|
|
|
Post by papaof2 on Nov 23, 2023 16:32:23 GMT -6
I'm certain I've commented on the (lack of) quality of the power co-op's outage reporting but here's another example: www.jecarter.us/files/stupid-power-co-op.jpgIf someone's power has been out for an hour and 54 minutes, how can they not be affected?
|
|
|
Post by feralferret on Nov 24, 2023 18:14:13 GMT -6
New math!
|
|
|
Post by papaof2 on Dec 5, 2023 19:44:13 GMT -6
Georgia Power has another outage of undefined origin: 247 meters have been out long enough to have an ERT of "Re-evaluating Condition" with a cause of "An incident caused an outage in your area. We are working to restore power as quickly as possible."
It's near Buford Dam on Lake Lanier. That's more than an hour each way so not a place that's close enough for me to explore. Still curious about what might comprise "An incident" as the only "incident" that was big enough to hit the news was the natural gas leak with explosion and fire at an apartment complex in Atlanta a year or more back.
|
|
|
Post by feralferret on Dec 5, 2023 19:55:40 GMT -6
Makes you wonder just what the incident was. Most people have no clue how easy it is to disrupt power. Accidents do happen. At the same time you always have to wonder if someone performed a deliberate act until shown otherwise.
|
|
|
Post by papaof2 on Dec 5, 2023 23:09:54 GMT -6
There were the substation shooting incidents in North Carolina a year or so ago. What little follow-up I found seemed to say someone was mad at his power company but didn't know who owned which substations so he just shot up any that he could get access to. Any .308 cartridge is based on a military design so those would do serious damage to insulators or the cooling systems on the bigger transformers. Some insulators might need a well-aimed shot but some of the radiators are almost "side of a barn" in size so those might be point-and-shoot targets. There's a Georgia Power switching station a few miles from us that, from its size, supplies a very large area and a lot of residential and commercial customers - possibly some industrial customers as well. Some selective damage at any facility that size could easily approach putting a half million or more customers in the dark. Military tanks aren't readily available but loaded concrete trucks can be found idling at any large construction site. Putting two or three of those through the fence and as deep into the towers and transformers as they can get would certainly be possible and the trucks with the engine at the back would still have the engine running after running into what might be an engine-damaging blockade for any other vehicle - remember that the Abrams tank has its engine in the rear, as most well-designed tanks have done historically. For many of the residential substations, one truck could probably take down all the poles and lines coming in and going out and still be able to damage the building and possibly some of the switchgear inside. I haven't heard of that happening - yet - but neither had anyone heard of a jumbo jet crashing into in an office tower before 9/11/2001 - with the possible exception of the B-25 bomber that hit the Empire State Building in dense fog in 1945: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1945_Empire_State_Building_B-25_crashJust a little something to help you sleep better tonight ;-)
|
|
|
Post by papaof2 on Dec 10, 2023 0:31:09 GMT -6
There was "a marginal risk of severe weather" in the hourly forecast for Sunday morning and I managed to see it happen.
I had just brought up the North camera when lightning flashed. It went away & so did our power - instant dark, so not power co-op breaker doing the on-off, on-off, on-off to stay of an overload: just a circuit going open. Blocks of 874, 457 & 474 meters at our substation + 994 meters at the substation west-northwest of us about 3 minutes later. Not the first time for both subs to be out together. Are they interconnected? One sub feeds the other sub? Don't have access to that map.
The pure sine wave UPS for the TV and DVR meant there was light in the family room so I grabbed a flashlight to check where the better half was in getting ready for bed. Offered her a light to read by until she dozed off but power was back in about 5 minutes so the only loss was the time on the stove and the microwave oven clocks - most of the other electric clocks have some type of backup (UPS or battery).
There was a faint scent of electrical burn in the bedroom but nothing I brought close to my nose (clock & phone wall warts) was the source. I'll be awake for several more hours and I'll check the rest of the house for possible problems.
30 minutes later, there's a block of 7 meters north of us that's still out since the hit time but the big outages have cleared.
The hourly forecast includes Cloudy and Showers until 4AM when it's Thundershowers, then Light Rain, Rain, Light rain, Showers, until 7PM when it's Mostly Cloudy, the wind is 14MPH and the windchill temp is 36F. At 9PM the wind is 15MPH and the windchill temp is 31F. At 7AM, it's to be Mostly Clear with the windchill temp 25F.
Just another day in the warm and Sunny South...
|
|
|
Post by papaof2 on Dec 19, 2023 21:09:41 GMT -6
The other power co-op in the county has an outage affecting 1506 meters that was reported 20 minutes ago.
Outage Status A crew is on the way to restore power Cause Assessing outage cause
I'd guess that they didn't have a crew on standby at 9:30PM so someone got called out and they will have an assessment of the possible cause within an hour and then they'll have a better idea of restoration time than their generic "4 hours after the report".
I should check that again in an hour or so. 1506 meters could be an entire substation down...
|
|
|
Post by papaof2 on Dec 20, 2023 1:55:19 GMT -6
An hour and a half later, that problem is cleared but they now have an outage of 1296 meters which sounds like much of another substation. Not a good night for that co-op.
|
|
|
Post by feralferret on Dec 20, 2023 17:17:03 GMT -6
Reminds me of the Three Stooges routine where when they push in a drawer on a chest of drawers another drawer comes out, ad infinitum.
|
|
|
Post by gipsy on Dec 20, 2023 18:10:09 GMT -6
|
|
|
Post by papaof2 on Dec 29, 2023 11:55:12 GMT -6
Wind isn't high today: 10 - 15MPH, but
There's a 617 meter outage in north Georgia with the cause listed as "a tree".
There's a 491 meter outage in northeast Atlanta with the cause listed as "a tree".
There's a 72 meter outage in Valdosta, GA with an ERT of "Re-evaluating Condition" and the details are "An outage has been reported in your area. We are working to determine a restoration time."
1180 (90.9%) of their 1298 meters out are from two trees and an as-yet-unknown "condition".
What happens if we get ice in January?
|
|