National Grid tripping out

I live in Stoke on Trnt and have experienced millisecond blackouts from the national grig electricity supply for as long as I can remember. I have just had 3 such outages in the lst few minutes.

What is the problem besides criminally incompetent private companies not giving the sort of protection I can remember getting in the national National Grid.

Reply to
Weatherlawyer
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A 'millisecond' blackout doesn't really make sense, what do you actually mean?

Reply to
cl

You must have some fancy test equipment to measure this!

Also how do you know it is not a fault on your property?

Reply to
Bill

You'll only be getting your power direct from the National Grid if you are a very large electricity consumer indeed. If that applies to you I suggest you complain to your account team at National Grid.

The rest of us get our power via a distribution network operator (formerly our regional electricity company). Very short breaks are often caused by automatic switching operations in the distribution network (e.g. tap-changers).

The last time I had my hands on kit capable of measuring

1 ms breaks in supply was back in the days of the nationalised supply industry. There was plenty of short- term junk on the supply back then but then, as now, properly designed electrical appliances shouldn't be affected by very short term gaps in supply.
Reply to
Graham Nye

whatever trips/outages you have been getting will be unlikely to originate with the National Grid. They will be due to equipment belonging to your local supply company who look after all kit that works on voltages below

132kV. The trips are most liely due to an automatic tap-changer at your local substation.
Reply to
charles

Local sub-station; thanks.

We can close this thread now. Unless there is someone who knows how to get the clowns in charge of the substation to do their job properly.

Reply to
Weatherlawyer

I have one of these mains disturbance recorders

but it only indicates blackouts of 10ms (1/2 a 50Hz cycle)

Reply to
Andy Burns

Probably an earthquake near Vanuatu.

Reply to
Paul Herber

O no! We rely on product shipped from there. Will it disrupt airmail?

(True but not meant seriously.I hope. :-) )

Reply to
polygonum

Weatherlawyer scribbled...

You'll have more to complain about in a couple of weeks

formatting link

Engineers will be watching World Cup matches to ensure Britain?s electricity network can cope with the expected power surges during key games. Staff from the National Grid have been analysing data from previous major football games to try and predict what may happen next month so they can prevent electricity demand outstripping supply as people rush for post-match cups of tea or half-time loo breaks.

Reply to
Jabba

Was it windy? Normally I notice this sort of thing when its windy near where the overhead wires run. Its my belief, though I cannot prove it that nobody looks at theproximity of tree growth to over head wires anymore and so, every so oftne they get hit and occasionally touch other wires, eventually failing big time of course. Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff

On 30/05/2014 07:58, Jabba wrote: ...

A good excuse for the staff at Dinorwig to watch the matches :-)

Colin Bignell

Reply to
Nightjar

There were 3 brief supply interruptions here at around 10.45 yesterday evening. Long enough to dim the lights and cause the router to reset.

Summer is when the electricity supply network undergoes routine/planned maintenance. This village has two incoming 11kV supplies. I don't know how these are normally connected but, for fault limitation, only one might be in use at a time.

Reply to
Tim Lamb

Surely substation failures are a Poisson process.

-- Richard

Reply to
Richard Tobin

Overhead lines and inadequate maintainence of the trees overhanging them. At least that is the most common problem up in North Yorkshire.

The other one with legacy three phase vertically on local poles is when the insulation perishes and dangles down from one phase to the next. In bad weather this gives some really good arcing and sparking displays.

It has to get *really* bad before they come out and replace!

Reply to
Martin Brown

Have you misplaced them? Are they down the back of the sofa?

Reply to
Adrian

Clue: This is not a forum.

Reply to
Adrian

Just when it's getting amusing?

Reply to
Adrian

The closing or otherwise of this thread is not in your gift.

Reply to
Tim Streater

If there are fish swimming around in the substations, it is little wonder that they fail.

Colin Bignell

Reply to
Nightjar

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