I posted this item yesterday--GICC says it wasn't Y2K related

Response to Power Failure--Entire City Down Derby power outage was NOT Y2K related. Cylde Hill, director of support services, has been working with Y2K issues for Kansas Gas & Electric. In my call with him today, he reported that the Derby 90 minute power outage was attributable to a non-Y2K catastrophic failure of capacitor banks. He reports that over the years, the capacitor banks break down and can fail, as they did in this case. He feels the public doesn't realize that 95% of electric power equipment in field doesn't have microprocessor; rather, they are electromechanical devices.

-- Jan Nickerson (GICC Electric Power Analyst) (JaNickrson@aol.com), January 06, 2000.

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), January 07, 2000

Answers

I wonder what could *cause* a capacitor bank to fail?

Dirty power, perhaps?

-- Ron Schwarz (rs@clubvb.com.delete.this), January 07, 2000.

Thanks for the update Carl. Having follow up on issues like this is great.

Ron. There are a number of things that can cause capacitor cans to fail, but when they do fail they cause dirty power (as in loss of voltage support).

-- Malcolm Taylor (taylorm@es.co.nz), January 07, 2000.

It was a leading question, I confess.

-- Ron Schwarz (rs@clubvb.com.delete.this), January 07, 2000.

Latge capacitors of this sort contain electrolyte chemicals (used to be PCB's but now banned) Over time the electrolyte wears out and dries out, or leaks out.

Also, any electronic hobbyist will tell you that a capacitor which is exposed to a voltage spike beyond its rated capacity, simply explodes. I have had some loud, gunshot like results when dickering with old vacuum tube equipment.

-- Forrest Covington (theforrest@mindspring.com), January 07, 2000.