The power here just blinked off, just now. But it didn't go all the way off. My desk lamp had a faint glow. My UPS power alert window poped up. It has 2 bar graphs, one for input voltage, one for output. The input was at about 10%. IT TOOK AT LEAST 30 SECONDS TO GET BACK TO NORMAL! The graph itself actually works pretty well, kept in time with the slowly brightening desk lamp! A good test for the UPS at least...

Very strange. Tick... Tock... <:00=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), September 09, 1999

Answers

Sysman,

Perfect opp to ask a lingering question. Have wondered about potential damange to my puters & files from brownouts. Advice?

-- Carlos (riffraff1@cybertime.net), September 09, 1999.

Carlos,

Get a UPS, beyond a doubt. You can get a basic unit for about $100. Stay away from those cheap "surge protectors." After they take one good hit, the protection is fried, and it turns into an expensive outlet strip! If you can spend a few more $, get one with a higher capacity. The nicer models usually offer better protection. APC is a pretty good brand with a nice selection. <:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), September 09, 1999.

This would be a good time to bring this thread into the topic of brown outs.

One of the more interesting prep threads I have read.

 Low Voltage problems

"An earlier thread referenced a concern about "low voltage" burning out pumps, furnace motors, etc.  Avery legitimate concern,  and one I have never seen mentioned before."

-- Brian (imager@home.com), September 09, 1999.

An interesting aside to the low voltage issue is in conversation with a local utility repair guy, he indicated that when a utility loers voltage the amps increase (Ohms law). Our meters for billing purposes are measured in amps. Lower voltage equals higher amps to yield the same watts (what we actually use. Nice increase in corporate profits too with no rate increase. Solves the mystery I had where each year I reduce the electrical demands but according to the little graph we get, my usage increases annually.

EC

-- EC (JHnck1776@aol.com), September 09, 1999.

Carlos,

Towards the bottom of the current thread list there is a similar question I posted on 9/8/99. Look for the title "The Power Grid...", and I think you'll find alot of good info that electrically-challenged folks, like me, can understand. Surge protectors won't do you any good in protecting you from brownout effects, which could be very problematic, as I understood from the postings there.

-- Kristi (KsaintA@aol.com), September 09, 1999.

The Power Grid and Protecting My Home From Surges and Brownouts: Suggestions?

<:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), September 09, 1999.

This is not good.

If the lights get dim and other strange effects happen due to the grid "reorganizing" or shifting power to compensate for areas that fail, can you imagine how many people are just going to sit and watch it, with no idea of the damage it could be doing to their heating sources, major appliances, well pumps, whatever? If brief but widespread, rolling brownouts DO cause permanent damage to home and business equipment, that raises the stakes considerably. Imagine the scale of complications that would arise if all at once, millions of people are scrambling to obtain repairs and replacement parts/units, especially if manufacturing here and abroad is simultaneously disrupted. I can see it now: at the end of the 3-day storm, Kosky steps up to the podium with a big, reassuring smile (you know the one), and says "The good news is, most computers continued operating normally, just as we said they would, and that power is now fully restored in most communities. The bad news is, (Heh, heh, heh) that all those little low voltage events we've all experienced during the last few days, seem to have "toasted" just about everything that was turned ON.

Please, ladies and gentlemen: It is crucial that everyone remains calm. You must do nothing, while we try to figure out what to do now. The main thing is that no one panics or overreacts. We realize that most of you are out of food and water by now, but the electricity is on in most places. Just remember, we're the smartest people on the Earth, so we WILL get this mess straightened out sooner or later.

Now, I have an Executive Order requiring that all electrical engineers, electricians, and their apprentices, in fact ANYONE who knows ANYTHING about electrical systems and repairs, report to ..."

-- Kristi (KsaintA@aol.com), September 10, 1999.

And due to the difficulty of obtaining _____ (fill in a needed part) from _____ (fill in country), we may have a slight delay in manufacturing new motors. Not to worry. The supply chain will be fully operational in _____ (fill in number of days).

Tick... Tock... <:00=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), September 10, 1999.

Kristi

Excellant summation.

Now here is that challange on a large scale. This is the biggest consern I see challanging the Grid. This has been on the Y2K Senate Committee's home page for the last 6 months. Plus they have issued warning to the Governers of the 50 States. No other issue in Y2K has had that kind of consern. But not a word of it at the recent press gathering. Sometimes when Bennett says to hoard information he is telling you to read this. Front and center on their website. Ignorance is no excuse.

Technology Problems and Industrial Chemical Safety

 Year 2000 Issues

Power Outages

No effort was made in this study to assess the potential of power
outages from Y2K-related failures. However, potential Y2K-related
power outages represent another set of problems for
chemical and petroleum facilities. While many chemical and
petroleum manufacturing facilities have backup power generators,
Y2K failures may include concurrent loss of power, cooling water
and other system malfunctions. First, plants without auxiliary
power backup systems face a threat to parts of their processes that
may not shutdown in a fail-safe mode. Batch chemical processes
are especially susceptible because the safety of the process is quite
often dependent on time-dependent factors such as precisely timed
mixing, heating or cooling requirements. Second, a potential
scenario is that widespread power outages may cause shutdowns of
many plants, which in turn will require simultaneous startups.
Although startups of chemical plants are infrequent and their
durations are short compared with the life cycle of a plant, process
safety incidents occur five times as often during startup as they do
during normal operations 16 . Thus, a large number of simultaneous
startups may increase the potential of incidents in one or more
process plants. In addition, the simultaneous restarts of large
power-consuming facilities will impose large demands on the
electrical grid.

Snip

For some managers of facilities that draw high power loads
prudent safety practice may determine that the plant be shut down
during critical time periods and restarted at a later date. However,
such decisions should not be made without communicating these
planned actions with their utilities in order to prevent problems on
the power grid. As a further complication, cumulatively, small
power consumers can impact on power distribution through the
nearly simultaneous shut down of many facilities without
coordinating with their utility. Utilities can bring up or shutdown
generators as demands vary, but they have trouble responding to
unexpected changes in load or demand.

Insufficient electrical demand coupled with increased numbers of
generators supplying the electric grid could overload the power
distribution system, threaten the integrity of equipment, and/or trip
breakers. If that happened, then there could be power outages for
all the customers on the affected distribution line. The January 11,
1999 report, Preparing the Electric Power Systems of North
America for Transition to the Year 2000-A Status Report and
Work Plan-Fourth Quarter 1998, issued a specific
recommendation that would affect any advice given for facilities
considering shutting down during rollover to Year 2000:35

Unusual Loading Patterns and Minimum Generation
Conditions. Another priority concern that is emerging from the
contingency planning process stems from the need to have
additional generating units on line as a precaution against Y2K
events. With additional generators on line and the possibility
of customer demand being low through the extended holiday
period, utilities must consider what is called a *minimum
generation* condition. When there is too much generation on
line in relation to demand, system voltages and frequency can
rise. Planning for the rollover into the Year 2000 must trade
off the need to have additional reserves to respond to possible
generator contingencies with the potential for excessive
voltages. Customers should be encouraged during the period
not to take unusual steps such as shutting down facilities that
would normally operate through the holiday weekend.
Extremely low demand or unusual pattern demand can present
additional challenges for operation of the electric system.

The response to the utility problem has to be two-pronged,
governmental leadership and corporate accountability. The federal
government should ensure the integrity of the nations electrical
grid. In addition, state and local governments should make every
effort to ensure the integrity of other utilities within their purview.
The chemical process facilities should on the other hand design
their Y2K compliance activities, particularly the contingency
planning activities with the assumption that most utilities will fail,
or at the best be under maximum strain.

-- Brian (imager@home.com), September 10, 1999.

EC, where in heck do you live, where they measure your AMPS for billing purposes? Are you SURE?

Al

-- Al K. Lloyd (all@ready.now), September 10, 1999.

Back in the late 60's, when I was a young and foolish long haired anti-gubmint free willer, we used to lay a big ol' 10 lb magnet on the meter for a couple of days, usually right after someone spotted the walk-by meter reader squintin at the readouts in the back yard...that whoppin dose of magnetism really slowed that big wheel down...Later, I think the power company caught on, and revised some of the internal components to nonferrous metals to get around our types. But we never seen em readin our amps while we was jammin..... I guess that Fender Twin Reverb was already automated...Don't know about the Marshalls or the Peaveys..(hey wavey-gravey..did they have peaveys back when we were playin bars an stuff?..)

-- Jay Urban (jurban@berenyi.com), September 10, 1999.

Customers should be encouraged during the period not to take unusual steps such as shutting down facilities that would normally operate through the holiday weekend. Extremely low demand or unusual pattern demand can present additional challenges for operation of the electric system.

GREAT ADVICE: leave your equipment on line so that it can get burned out. If you don't you may help cause a black out. Sort of like "leave your money in the bank system or you'll cause a bank failure." Or, "don't get off the Titanic, there are plenty of life boats for everyone."

-- de (delewis@XOUTinetone.ent), September 10, 1999.

Could it be the utilities understand that these types of risks to our infrastructure are very real, but are keeping it to themselves? "They didn't ask us; we won't tell ... because there's no way to workaround this Catch-22 anyway!" Surely it is understood that residential and business consumers would cooperate with whatever clear directions they were given, if it meant safeguarding the grid AND the consumers' property during the rollover. Surely this is something that Kosky could put into terms clear enough for most adults ... and even the media ... to understand, if there was any possible workaround. Anyone who has spent a dime on remediation would certainly be willing to unplug the equipment they've remediated, and plug in some "disposable" equipment to take the hit, in its place, and to keep some power draw on the grid going. Maybe it would be pointless.

Think about it ... I have brownout event #1 roll through my part of the grid, and it blows out my frig, and heat pump, and water heater, as well as those of most of the other residents of my county. Or maybe Brownout event #1 gets some of those things, and brownout event #2 the next day, gets the rest. What happens to the local grid then? All of this equipment has stopped running, so the utility HAS to deal with the lower demand issue at this juncture anyway. What have we accomplished? Merely delaying the inevitable dilemma? Please, SOMEBODY, tell me this scenario couldn't/ wouldn't be a serious possibilty, so I don't have to add a whole new layer of thinking to my Y2K planning?! Especially about electricity ... when I can't even define a watt, volt, or amphere, let alone how the grid works.

I'm off to the bookstore for some good primer/handyman's guide on this subject, so maybe I can understand the comments and advice better. What's next!! Think it's time for a good scream ...

-- Kristi (KsaintA@aol.com), September 10, 1999.