Here is a question for someone from an electric company.
There was a question on here about using a generator if the power goes out. This got me thinking about something. Lets say that your generator is incorrectly installed and is accidentally sending power OUT of your house. Any building that is hooked to the same transformer will get power from your generator. However that would only be a few neighbors.
My question is what happens on the opposite side of the transformer? The standard home transformer is dropping a very high voltage, something like 5000 volts, down to (center tapped) 240/120 volts. So, if you are backfeeding a generator into the secondary windings (240 side), will the transformer increase the voltage to 5000, or whatever it is, in the primary? Knowing how a transformer works, I would assume it would. But do they have some sort of circuit built into these transformers to prevent this from happening?
Also, what would happen if you were backfeeding and the electric company turned their service back on? I would assume that the home generator would be destroyed...... but I could be wrong....