|
Post by papaof2 on Jul 26, 2022 2:22:18 GMT -6
The 454 meter outage is approaching 11 hours. The co-op's outage page still has nothing more than when it started, how long it's been and how many meters. Yes, I'm still awake in the wee hours - waiting for the second dose of Rx pain meds to get things down to a sleepable level.
Although we're probably better prepared for that outage than the people it affects, I'm glad it's not us. My back wouldn't let me move the window A/C from the garage to the master bedroom right now :-( Maybe go buy a new 5000 BTU window A/C and let the seller load it into the back of the truck and get the neighbor who's 40 years younger to do the heavy work of getting it into the window? I could probably manage the extension cord to get power from the kitchen to the bedroom. I think 14 gauge would work for that distance as the running power (compressor on) is about 425 watts.
|
|
|
Post by papaof2 on Sept 4, 2022 0:57:46 GMT -6
Awake because I'm hurting so checking the power company web sites to stay busy while waiting for the Rx pain meds to kick in :-(
Georgia Power has a tree-caused outage of 888 meters that's several hours old. Before midnight, the ERT was 1AM. At 2:45AM, the ERT is 3:30AM. Perhaps that fallen tree was more complex than they initially thought? Or perhaps they plan to stay "busy" until daylight so they're not working in the dark?
|
|
|
Post by kyrsyan on Sept 4, 2022 19:07:53 GMT -6
Mine doesn't give estimates. I just turn off the main breaker and carry on until I notice the street lights come back on or neighbors going back inside.
|
|
|
Post by papaof2 on Sept 4, 2022 19:46:55 GMT -6
So few people turn off the Main during an outage :-( If an outage looks to be long enough for me to use any type of backup power, I'll be standing in front of the breaker box to flip the breakers on the transfer panel so what's one more breaker? :-)
Small transfer panel - 4 circuits but only 3 of them in use. When we lose power, we go to "cabin in the woods" power usage fairly quickly: fridge, few LED lights, furnace if needed. The freezer is supposed to be OK for 16-24 hours without power but I'd be looking to power it at least intermittently after 8 hours - that's why I have one 75 foot extension cord ;-)
|
|
|
Post by papaof2 on Sept 7, 2022 18:15:45 GMT -6
The other power co-op in the county only has two blocks of outages at this time: 1492 meters and 1936 meters. The outages are overlapping and are probably 50/50 business and residential. They both have the same cause: Vehicle-caused damage
From the locations of the outages, that "Vehicle-caused damage" may have damaged or taken down a pole for the high voltages line(s) that run through there. Even if it only damaged an insulator, all the power would be off while repairs took place.
|
|
|
Post by papaof2 on Sept 11, 2022 22:07:08 GMT -6
The other power co-op in the county has two outages which add up to 5995 meters. One outages is 5994 meters, which started at 10:57PM and has an ERT of 3AM. There are thunderstorms in the area and my guess would be damage to a substation (big transformer or switchgear) or the lines feeding the substation to have a single outage this big.
Georgia Power has outages of 511 meters (ERT 2AM) and 235 meters (ERT 9AM) - also in the path of that band of thunderstorms.
Us? As yet, not a single light flicker or UPS Beep! It's all about where the storms are the heaviest. The hourly forecast has us getting thunderstorms in the midnite to 2AM block of time.
|
|
|
Post by papaof2 on Sept 22, 2022 0:03:18 GMT -6
Sunny most of the day. Mostly calm with highest wind 8MPH. Georgia Power has 499 meters out in the city of Atlanta just after midnight from a fallen tree. ERT: 6AM
Those stately old trees need to be checked occasionally by someone knowledgable - they might be dying or rotten or in very wet and unsafe soil.
|
|
|
Post by papaof2 on Oct 19, 2022 1:27:00 GMT -6
Our co-op has an outage of fewer than 5 meters. Began at 22:04 on 18 Oct, with an ERT of 03:15 on 19 Oct. At 03:13 on 19 Oct, the ERT is 06:15. Wonder how annoyed those folks are because the outside temperature is 36F and they've been without power for 5 hours and have probably 3 hours yet to wait. The morning low is forecast to be 33F. The afternoon high will be 59F.
How bad are the kids (or maybe the adults) without internet access? No Facebook, no Twitter, no email, no access to pawfiction, no <your choice(s) here>. Did the kids finally get bored and go to bed because "There's nothing to do!" or because the bed was warmer than anywhere else if they pulled up the extra blankets? Do they have a windup or battery-powered alarm clock - something other than their phones which are probably dead from being used for general lighting? What if the kid in question is three months old? Can they warm a bottle? Can they cook or even warm breakfast in the morning?
|
|
|
Post by papaof2 on Nov 28, 2022 22:05:40 GMT -6
It's been a nice day - maybe even a bit warm for the end of November - but 621 folks are without power down near Meriwether, GA. If you don't recognize the name, it's a little South of halfway between Eatonton and Milledgeville (that name's origin is probably historic - think about it).
The cause? Possibly the nice weather.
Customers Affected 621 Outage Details A vehicle accident has caused an outage in your area. Most customers will be restored by the ERT shown.
Just one problem. The ERT is
Estimated Restoration Time (ERT): Re-evaluating Condition
Hope those folks have powerbanks to charge their phones, maybe an oil lamp for light and maybe an alternate source of heat: tonight's low there will be 43.
|
|
|
Post by papaof2 on Dec 15, 2022 22:49:04 GMT -6
I noticed a large outage (~2300 meters) in the other power co-op in the county earlier this week, but it was mostly cleared when I checked back 30 minutes later. That outage did finally make the local news. Lightning apparently dropped a Geaogia Power line onto some of that co-op's lines which caused an overvoltage condition. Comments from the affected residents include: "I smelled electrical smoke." "40% of my breakers were tripped." "Furnace will have to be replaced." "Lighting control module destroyed."
This is one event where a whole-house surge protector (mounted on the breaker panel) might have prevented some damage and saved some money, as some of the repairs are expected to be in the $6,000 to $10,000 range.
However, if these people are comfortable with the $1,043/month HOA fee they can probably afford those repairs.
Georgia Power says it was an "act of nature" and they are NOT liable for any damage. Better check whether your homeowner's insurance covers "act of nature" events...
|
|
|
Post by papaof2 on Jan 20, 2023 6:14:59 GMT -6
A vehicle accident in a rural area (near Garland) that's supplied by Georgia Power has 233 meters out. At 3AM, the ERT was 6AM. It's now 7AM and the ERT is "Re-evaluating Condition". That probably made getting up and getting breakfast harder than usual - if breakfast was even possible, as some folks have all-electric homes. And if they didn't have a UPS to go "Beep! Beep!" and let them know the power was off right when it happened, they might have slept right through shower time, breakfast time, the school bus stopping at the corner and who knows what else...
Maybe GPC is waiting for daylight to be able to see well enough to fix things?
|
|
|
Post by papaof2 on Jan 28, 2023 23:24:34 GMT -6
It's been an hour since things went dark - all at once - no off, on, off, on, off to stay of a power co-op breaker resetting.
The local power co-op says power went off at 23:20 but I looked at the clock on the laptop when the lights went out and it was 23:18. All 676 meters along the main road in one fell swoop. The point of failure is at an intersection where the feed for one road (us) heads West and another feed goes East. No ERT or description of the failure from our co-op either online or via the app.
Twenty minutes later, power is still off but I grabbed a rechargeable head light and went to the basement to get the backup power system going. My timing was good as the furnace's induction blower started as soon as it had power ;-) I did report the outage using the co-op's app when I got back upstairs. Other than a few solar walkway lights, it's very dark outside ;-)
I'm on one of the laptops to check power status (the head light is on the sofa and aimed up to have light on the keyboard) and the better half is using a USB powered LED light on a 5000mah power bank to have light to read by. Without the grid, you use power where and as needed - no point in lighting the room when the book is in your lap.
We're good for 8+ hours (furnace & fridge) on silent backup power. Other than not watching anything recorded on the DVR, it will be an almost normal night ;-)
Some folks think you don't need backup power unless there's big storm coming...
We had almost the identical failure a year or so ago - 676 meters and the failure at about the same point. Guess they didn't fix things adequately back then...
|
|
|
Post by papaof2 on Jan 29, 2023 0:48:38 GMT -6
Two and a half hours into this undefined outage and with no info from the co-op, I got the Luci Core light (from MPOWERD.com) that hangs over the curtain rod in the dining room with its solar panel facing the sunny window. They spec that light as good for 12 hours on its lowest setting so I should have light as long as I want to stay up and watch status on this outage.
I do have remote access to the laptop monitoring the solar backup system - UltraViewer is a very useful free tool. The battery bank on the backup system is at 12.28 volts and my usual cutoff point for AGM batteries is 50% DOD which will be around 12.1 volts under load. I can hear if the fridge or the furnace is running, so I now whether the battery voltage I'm looking at is near resting (now 12.76 volts, couple of LED lights, couple of rechargeable portable lights on charge) or the system is actually powering something that uses in the hundreds of watts (460 for the furnace blower, 560 for the fridge in defrost mode the 12.28 volts). If this lasts more than four hours, I'll run a long extension cord to provide power for the freezer for an hour or so to ensure it stays cold enough. It's not been opened so it should be fine for 8-16 hours (CDC says 24 hours but I'm a pessimist). However, I have a volts, amps, watts, amp hours, watt hours monitor on the battery bank so I can check for the actual used AH and shut the backup system down when it's used 50% of the battery bank's rated AH capacity. That's the guaranteed way to not exceed 50% (or whatever value you use for your battery backup).
Because I can watch the voltage remotely, I'll not make another trip to the basement to check the AH used until the battery voltage is closer to 12.1 volts. Nice to have backup when almost no one else does (there's a house up on a hill that appears to have whole house backup but I wouldn't want to be the only light in a large dark space). We've had light showing, but most of the lights have moved from room to room and it's been one or two rooms at most with light.
My better half was happy with the rechargeable light on top of the fridge - it lights the interior of the upper cabinets better than the overhead light in the kitchen does for when she was emptying the dishwasher and putting things away. There are occasions when my "weird ways" get appreciated ;-)
Researching failures in the area, a similar failure that affected 800+ meters occurred about 4 years ago. Makes you wonder how much shade tree mechanic-ing goes on down in that section of the distribution network...
|
|
|
Post by papaof2 on Jan 29, 2023 2:55:24 GMT -6
Four and a half hours into this outage and I've had to do a little work.
1. The UPS units for the home network don't last more than 3 hours. I ran a 50 foot extension cord to that part of the basement and used a triple cube tap to be able to plug in two UPS units and the 24 port network switch - that UPS died during this event. Not an expensive unit as all I have in the UPS is the price of the battery because the UPS was a freebie on Craig's List.
2. After four hours, I plug the freezer in long enough for it to run and cycle off once. That says it's cold enough for now. If this outage lasts much longer, I'll put the freezer on a digital timer that lets it run one hour out of five.
3. The laptop I've been using needed to be charged so it's om the kitchen counter and 30 minutes or so from being fully charged. Meanwhile, I'm using the ancient D630 laptop running XP. It also needed to be charged so I unreeled the reel extension cord with four outlets, plugged the reel into the last free outlet in the kitchen and brought power to the family room. I'm using two of the other outlets to charge two UPS units, just in case they are needed later. The batteries in one of those UPS units seems to have reached the "charged" state as it did several seconds of relay clicking as it switched to battery power to see if that would work - I think that one is charged.
When the laptop is charged, I may move the reel outlets over to the pure sine wave UPS that serves the A/V cabinet and let that one charge so I might be able to watch a bit of TV while I wait. I need to sit and wait for a while as I've been on my feet and up and down stairs far too much this night :-( While I have power near the sofa, I might plug in two heating pads - one for my back and one for my neck. Getting certain things unplugged so they can be connected to backup power at the end of an extension cord can sometimes require a lot of bending and twisting - things that are part of the Thou Shalt Not list from my back surgery. I'm a tablet and a half into the Rx pain meds (max dose is two tablets but I try to stay with the minimum dose that lets me sleep) - hopefully I'll be testing the level of sleep the current dose can provide in a few hours - but I'm not optimistic :-(
|
|
|
Post by papaof2 on Jan 29, 2023 4:28:09 GMT -6
At 6 hours in, this outage still has NO information posted by the power co-op.
The freezer ran longer than I anticipated so I needed to charge the batteries a bit to keep up with the fridge. I set the thermostat down two degrees so the furnace shouldn't kick back in soon and I'll turn on the gas logs in the family room so there will be more warm air available when the furnace does run again. How will I charge the batteries when there is no power, the sun is several hours away and I never run a generator in the dark? I pressed two of the newest members of the battery stable into service. Two of the 12 volt, 10AH LiFePo4 batteries were wired in series and connected to the "solar" input on one of the MPPT charge controllers that's connected to the battery bank. The charge controller doesn't care where the DC voltage on the "solar" input comes from, just that there is power there. That controller is trucking along at 398 watts output to the battery bank (13.x volts at 29 amps). The charging process won't last long as there is only 260 watt hours of power (10 amps at 26 volts) and, at best, the throughput will be a little more than 90% of that value. That added power will cover another hour of power for the inverter (and the fridge, furnace, etc.). I have another pair of those LiFePO4 batteries that could be used to add roughly that much more power to the battery bank and maybe make it until daylight. Solar panels are NOT a good option until after 10AM so I guess the better half and I will be muscling the 50lbs of inverter gen out of the shed so I can run the essential appliances and charge the batteries. If I would just turn loose of about $2400, I could have a 12 volt, 920AH LiFePO4 battery bank that would run things for three days ;-) I'm still waiting for the TV/movie offer on one or more of my books so I don't think this will be the year for the LiFePO4 upgrade :-(
Regardless of the glitches, the backup system did what was expected - the freezer is on the list after eight hours of outage but I connected it at four hours so more power was used sooner than the spreadsheet specifies.
In checking the battery bank remotely, the voltage is beginning to decrease so I think the small LiFePO4 batteries have given their best and it's time to put in the next team of LFP ;-) That should also buy another hour of use so figure two hours to 7:30 and sunrise. If power's not back then, it will be time to run the generator.
|
|
|
Post by papaof2 on Jan 29, 2023 6:23:27 GMT -6
As we approach 8 hours into this outage, the power co-op still hasn't posted any info.
However, at one minute before the 8 hour mark, power came back on. Now I get to put ALL the batteries on charge...
At least I had or found options that kept the fridge and furnace running until power came back ;-)
|
|
|
Post by papaof2 on Mar 28, 2023 2:58:07 GMT -6
It's 4:53AM and I'm again awake for most of another night - one of the joys of being OLD.
The other power co-op in the county has 1 outage, affecting 5 meters, since 4:07PM yesterday. That's almost 13 hours and the ERT is "Reassessing Condition". Those folks just don't give me warm fuzzies about their level of maintenance forces...
|
|
|
Post by gipsy on Mar 28, 2023 9:26:00 GMT -6
Were from the Govt. and were here to help. LOL
|
|
|
Post by papaof2 on Apr 1, 2023 0:49:12 GMT -6
Checking the power outages across the state, there's one with 1534 meters out.
The details?
A tree has caused a power outage in your area.
Perhaps you should hassle your neighbors about their old, wobbly trees?
|
|
|
Post by papaof2 on Jul 9, 2023 21:54:17 GMT -6
Oh My God!
The power's out!
And the whole road is dark in both directions!
And it's dark up at the tee intersection!
Does that mean there ain't no power on that road either??
Actually, there "ain't no power" anywhere.
Power off at 10:40PM - no off, on, off, on, off to stay of a circuit breaker, just instant dark. The co-op's outage page says 1818 meters which means the entire substation is down. 879 meters on our feed, 478 and 456 meters respectively on the other two feeds. We were checking the weather radar on a laptop when the power went off so we still had light in the room. Walked through the house to check outside and all the visible houses are dark. Set up two rechargeable lights pointing to the ceiling to provide "walk through" lighting in those rooms and had accessed the co-op's outage reporting page to report our outage when power came back. Back up at 10:52. Need to go turn off, recharge and put away the rechargeable lights and add this event to the "power outage" log I keep.
We'll probably never know why the substation was without power. There were 5 other meters on the co-op's outage page but those were 20+ minutes old when the house went dark. Nice to always have a flashlight in my pocket ;-)
Checking the co-op's outage page 10 minutes later, there's still one "outage" in the area served by the substation - probably someone who was quick to use the outage app on their phone. I generally don't report outages for the first 20 minutes or so. If I need to get backup power going, then it's time to notify the co-op.
The other co-op in the county has 1328 meters out in an outage that started about an hour earlier (no reason given) and has an ERT of 2AM.
Georgia Power has 169 meters out across the state - that's a quiet day when their meter count is 2.6 million.
Whatever took our co-op's meters out is isolated to just the co-op. We've had some rain but, although thunderstorms are in the forecast, we've had no rumbles. Guess we just write this one up as "no-see-ums in the power grid" - you know: those invisible bugs that bite you when you're outside but you never see them ;-)
---
We've had a grand total of 8 hours and 11 minutes of outage so far this year, 7:59 in one outage in January. Since January of 2017, we've had 28 hours and 30 minutes - my log doesn't go back any further than that but I know there was a 16 hour outage in a previous July. We may forget the 20 minutes here or hour there but an outage that requires using a chain saw is usually memorable :-(
|
|
|
Post by feralferret on Jul 11, 2023 0:55:18 GMT -6
I do not for a minute believe the predicted restoration times. They might be accurate around 10 to 15% of the time.
Before I put it away, I changed the oil in my generator after my last outage about a week ago. I plan to fill my car and the now empty 5 gallon gas can from filling the generator before storing it.
About three years ago I replaced the tires with the foam filled no air needed tires. No more topping off the air periodically. It was a real pain to drag out when a tire was flat, besides not sitting level on the concrete where I run it.
|
|
|
Post by papaof2 on Sept 26, 2023 20:32:31 GMT -6
Does your power provider do odd things?
Example: As I write this, there is one meter that has been without power for 20 days, 10 hours and 49 minutes.
Is that because
A) someone moved out without paying and the co-op cut power?
B) the smart meter died and the co-op is still waiting on delivery of the replacement meter from China by rowboat?
. B1) Is that customer running on a gas generator or a small solar system?
C) the only repair tech who knows where that house is off County 312 is on a one month cruise and won't be back for another 9 days?
D) your answer here:
|
|
|
Post by papaof2 on Oct 15, 2023 1:53:31 GMT -6
As I post this, our power co-op has one meter that's been out 3 days, 17 hours. Be interesting to have the actual address and go sight-seeing.
Apparently the Georgia Public Service Commission (or some sub-division thereof) has been shuffling power customers among the various power providers in the state.
Our co-op gained 1051 meters between July and Oct 15. Some of that is likely growth with some new housing construction going on (single family & condo/apartment) and maybe from the other co-op's losses (see next item).
The other co-op gained 841 meters between July and Oct 9. Probably growth from construction. They lost 37127 meters between 9 Oct and 15 Oct. Really, no idea. I don't remember seeing/hearing anything in the news about them.
Georgia Power gained 9922 meters between July and 15 Oct. Part might be from the other co-op but part is likely from growth somewhere in the state's 59,425 square miles.
I'm not curious enough to spend time searching through all the other small electric providers to find out where the rest of the other co-op's meters might have gone. There are maybe up to a dozen co-ops in the counties surrounding that co-op's previous service area so they'd be the places to look. Or maybe the apocalypse happened in that area yesterday and it's not yet made it to the news ;-)
|
|
|
Post by techsar on Oct 15, 2023 9:42:36 GMT -6
Friday we kept getting messages that our power was out...but during the four hours we were receiving "updates" the grid never even flickered.
Of course when the power actually goes out - not a peep.
|
|
|
Post by papaof2 on Oct 15, 2023 11:46:38 GMT -6
They've confused your "smart" meter's ID with someone else's? Joe and Juliet Jones were seeing constant flicker-flicker but they got no notices at all.
|
|