Just had a power outage for a couple of minutes. It came back on before I got bored enough to demonstrate my independance from the National Grid (short term) by tethering my laptop to my mobile for Internet access. However I would like to know what caused it and if it is likely to happen again before I power up the desktop. Location is coastal Suffolk.
Is there any online resource which carries immediate reports of power outages and causes?
Nothing obvious going on to explain this one - no thunder storms and the like.
Thanks - I discounted ringing a phone number because (a) A large number of other people are likely to be competing for the same number (b) It isn't an emergency. If it was off for some time then I might try that.
Try your local DNO's web site. Ours, ENW, has a page with major(*) outages on it but I think it's a manual update rather than a link from the automatic monitoring.
The mobile networks fail as the power goes or very quickly afterwards, very few cells have anything more than "safe shutdown" backup power arrangements. BT telephone exchanges are all equipped with large lead acid batteries and even the garden sheds out in rural areas also have gensets.
If it was off for only a second or two that would have been an autorecloser tripping and resetting due to a bird strike or wet branch getting blown up.
Long enough to find a torch or think "is it going to come back" is more likely to be switching to route supplies around a fault or possibly switching feeds to the local 33kV substation. When they switch between the 33kV main feed and 11kV backup to the local substation here it takes a couple of minutes.
When the power goes off here I sort out torches and shutdown computers on the UPS then call the DNO. It's about 50:50 if they have had a call or been automatically alerted already but they can normally look it up on the system and say "oh, yes we do have a high voltage fault".
(*) Major being something that affects more than 50 to 100 customers or has been on going for a long time.
They are strange indeed. The worst ones are those that are just a blip, less than a second but can scramble hard drives and generally cause problems to most domestic devices with computers inthem like tvs. Grrr. Brian
A favourite recollection of a failure of such a backup was a repeated one at a major BT installation where starting the backup generator produced a puff of smoke which was drawn in through an air intake to a smoke detector, causing the fire alarm to trigger and forcing the generator to be shut down.
It was a while ago so not sure if it also caused the fire brigade to be called out too but it was certainly a major source of amusement on the site as we waited for power to be reinstated.
I've got one of those.... around 1965 we were commissioning the control gear for the Clywedog dam in central Wales. 500kVA Pelton Wheel with a
100kVA diesel gen. set as back up and house supply.
Came the day the big shots arrived to be impressed and all us external engineers were ushered out of sight:-)
We saw the lights flicker as the newly trained site engineer synchronised the Pelton Wheel. The next move was to open up the supply valve to take over the load. This he clearly forgot as everything went dark followed by the diesel set starting up....
Why didn't that happen during routine testing? Important sites have more than one generator as one just isn't reliable enough. Maybe it was just offices?
I've only seen a backup generator kick in once. It was at a computer centre we were visiting. We were just pulling into the car park when all the lights went out, and there was an enormous and a cloud of smoke from round the back of the building. For a moment we thought that someone had blown up the building, but then the lights came up again and we could hear the generator running. Delayed us for a long time while they restored the systems, though.
Usually quicker to phone them. Tends to happen when it is very windy or ice build up occurs round here. Sometimes things just blow up. Or a tree falls through the line. I have a good picture somewhere of a tree being held off the ground by the village power line! It bent all the poles and they are marked as "unsafe" to climb manually now.
Phone lines stay good but you need a hardwired handset since wireless handset basestation phones don't play with no power. Neither does VOIP.
Or in some cases with old power cables the perished "insulation" flapping about in the breeze and striking another phase when wet.
I have a couple of LED torches with the switch bridged by a 10M resistor so that they glow continuously. That way after dark adaption you can find them in total darkness. Where I live is seriously dark if the mains fails. I have two emergency lights - kitchen and dining room.
I usually do ring the power co and then check on my elderly neighbour.
If it's the same number I call (I can't recall) then you just get a recorded message saying something like "we know about the problem but we've no idea what caused it or when it will be fixed".
That's a dead good idea and I might steal it from you. I have candles and cigarette lighters in strategic places where they can always be found without tripping over any furniture on the way. For a non-smoker I seem to have a lot of cigarette lighters around: but apart from candle-lighting on power-off days, I use them for odd jobs in the workshop.
EDF^H^H^H UKPower do at least answer the phone - only to claim they know nothing, despite the fact that I know[1] it is the main 66(or 33)kV substation that has tripped and I'm pretty sure they will have remote monitoring and possibly remote control on that.
[1] The whole village goes out and the substation has twin HV feeds, so unless something really unlucky happens to take both out...
Round here its UK power networks. They will know of some but some they wont if say its a spur off a 11 kV line then they most likely they won't and they will relay on someone reporting that. On the whole there not that bad and if you can get to speak to someone there they do have some very helpful engineers inc one very knowledgeable lady !...
When U cal them they do have a recorded message that says they are aware of power problems in some areas which they will list, and if not then you get put thru to an operator..
You're suggesting maybe that the line fault cleared, allowing a reset, after the vaporisation of the propspective thief?
I should be ashamed of myself for thinking it would serve such an individual right. Someone here once protested that a death sentence was a bit extreme as a punishment for cable theft, and I thought that he was a lot more ethical than I. But somehow I wouldn't feel much sorrow.
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