“Experiment” on the US power grid will change the way some clocks and other equipment function.
Story submitted by Joe Ryan
The AP has released an “exclusive” story concerning the nationwide “experiment” that will be conducted on the US power grid. The experiment will relieve the power providers from the duty of regulating the frequency of power on the line.
Normally the power stations condition their power to a frequency of 60 cycles a second, a frequency that many old clocks use to maintain their time. With the new standard, or lack of standard, these clocks will stop keeping time properly.
But the problem is more than that.
First, we have this gem from Joe McLelland who heads the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (from AP article):
“Is anyone using the grid to keep track of time?” McClelland said. “Let’s see if anyone complains if we eliminate it.”
… forgive me for not getting warm fuzzies from this. Likewise, Demetrios Matsakis, head of the time service department at the U.S. Naval Observatory, had this to say (AP Article again):
“A lot of people are going to have things break and they’re not going to know why,”
So, we have what appears to be an untested, for the hell of it, “experimental” major change to the US electrical grid coming in a few weeks and those in charge aren’t really sure how it will work or if it may break something?
Not only is this what a LAB is for, but it is also something that the Federal Government should be TELLING people about in advance, and not in an AP “exclusive” press release.
Well…………..here comes the crank down to unreliable wind and solar
This is great. Now I have the perfect excuse for being late to work.
I suspect that this is going to fry a lot of electronics.
For what good reason are they doing this, and whatever happened to ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’?
Florescent lighting will flicker and make a lot of office workers get fatigued early.
Excuse me, but won’t there be wave interence? Could this actually damage electronic devices? Should I disconnect all my devices from electrical outlets during the test?
Lots of farm water supply timers and stuff like that are still running older systems. This should be real interesting. How about older street light and traffic light controls systems, too?
The UK nominally has 230 volts, 50 hz but only has a contractual requirement to provide it within +/- 0.5hz. It gets increased and decreased by known amounts to indicate the load on the national grid, which in turn can be used as a way of deciding when to complete time-insensitive but energy-intensive jobs in manufacturing. The data is available online
I can understand reasons behind this move. It doesn’t mean you’ll have 55 or 65 Hz in your grid from now, for normal people it’ll still be indistinguishable from 60 Hz. But you’ll not have 5,184,000 cycles per day so your alarm clock may diverge by a few seconds a day.
The reason is, keeping exact number of cycles per day is in fact very expensive. And nowadays when many things don’t need to rely on grid accuracy (cellphones, GPS, …), there is no such need to keep it accurate anymore.
How much variance? How fast? It’s one thing if somebody’s analog oven clock is off, but what’s that going to do to large industrial motors? Nothing good!
I’ll let you when Texas starts to drift …
This (monitoring) can be done using any standard line-frequency driven clock by accurately setting the time against GPS time and noting the ‘wander’ ahead of or behind where the minute transitions take place.
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Induction motors burn out on under-frequency and at about 57 hertz the big steam turbines (both fossil and nuclear) begin spitting out their blades (they’re typically protected by automatic tripping at 57.5 hertz). However, I think all they’re talking about here is eliminating the requirement that if the grid runs a few cumulative cycles slow today (over a 24-hour period), it must run a few cumulative cycles fast tomorrow to make up the difference.
My concern is that this may be only the first step in degrading an utterly reliable system into a “hit or miss” calamity like third world countries experience in order to accommodate alternate energy. What I’m sure is going on is that many of those electronic ignoramus/geniuses such as some at Google are slowly getting onto the fact that that you cannot just “plug and play” generation into a synchronous system whenever you feel like it without destabilizing consequences. Life was tough enough for power dispatchers when all they had to do was chase variations in load 24/7. Any instantaneous difference between generation and load results in sufficient frequency variation to make up the difference. That’s how “spinning reserve” prime-mover governing systems know to kick the throttle either up or down. They sense speed change and restore the system to 60-hertz. Chasing wind and solar generation variations with each puff of wind or cloud passing over in addition to chasing load is making the dispatching job just that much more difficult and expensive. It means keeping lots more fossil-fired and hydro “spinning reserve” machines on line to do the up and down throttling.
Letting frequency wander a bit is just another way of saying we’ll degrade the whole system in order to accommodate renewables for the sake of political correctness. We certainly cannot make an economic case for renewable energy. By the time our federal geniuses get done “smartening up the grid” I fear you’ll be surprised anytime you flip the switch on and your house lights actually illuminate.
CH
In my dealings grid connected generation systems, We keep the 60 hz 60 hz because bad things begin to happen when the frequency shifts to far from the nominal. The power generation on the grid is syncronized. If this sync is lost, again bad things will happen.
Frequency is what the interconnection of grids and cogeneration is based on. Variable Frequency Drives require a base frequency to work properly and 60 HZ is it. Speed regulation will be affected as well as heat rejection depending what range the grid frequency varies. This has to be a joke right? What possible benefit could there be to this? Is this so cheaper wind turbines can be put on the grid. This is insane and so is whoever proposed this!
this will also change the amount of energy your appliances use, the way they function, and potential kill some of the the older motor driven equipment…
what is the purpose of this very dangerous and foolish little en-devour…
This sounds like a classic government attempt to “deregulate” something for the sole purpose of re-regulate it later but with 100x the regulation to “fix the problem”.
Simple process.
Find something that can be deregulated that will cause highly visible events.
Force the group to change away from the current regulate after its been “deregulated”.
Do it as quietly and as secretly as possible so the public has no idea and any simple fixes the public could employ are not done.
Wait for public backlash.
Blame the “deregulation” and the power companies(in this case).
Say we need more regulation.
Pass dozens of laws that have nothing to due with fixing the problem but massively expand government power/regulation/push the “agenda”.
Create massive new government group to regulate power companies(in this case).
“Fix the problem”
Take credit for fixing the problem through regulation and say “this is another spot light case of deregulation failing and why we need more money/regulation/government to fix the problems”.
This is why it’s stupid to give government the control of who does what when it comes to the energy industry.
I fact come to think of it, in Ontario with our wind turbines popping up like weeds I have to wonder if this is already happening here. I am experiencing unexplained failures on an increasing basis over the last few years. VFDs are blowing up at a rate that can’t be explained by production defects.
Maybe they could start with a small experiment in Washington DC first.
Hey – let’s change the AC freq and see what happens! Let’s nationalise healthcare and see what happens! Let’s hobble the economy with the green agenda and see what happens! What fun!
I say: let’s put into office an administration that isn’t anti-American, anti-free enterprise, and anti-Constitution, and see what happens!
If you love this, just wait for the “smart” (aka dumb as a rock after it is hacked) grid. No small wonder I am hoping to get enough solar to dump my grid.
This will mean that any ‘cycles slips’ during peak usage periods will NOT be made up during the overnight hours … if less than 100% generation is ‘on line’ (think wind mills) and cycle slips occur this will not be ‘made up’ …
As it is, cycle slips occur throughout a day, and usually are made up overnight.
A mild case of ‘cycle slipping’ here, from about -90 to +90 degrees in phase; note the change in the Lissajous pattern shape indicating phase relationship changing:
Mainly, this will affect time-keeping devices that are AC-line driven. Something called an “under-frequency relays” will trip throwing generating plant equipment off-line if a drop to as low as 58 Hz occurs (where 60 Hz is nominal) …
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Most manufacturers of electronic & electrical products know the effects of frequency variance on their products. Itstead of ‘experimenting’ with safety of all individuals in th country, how about asking manufacturers instead?
John
This will also affect clearence rates of breakers and fuses depending on the frequency variation. Fault current will change with frequency which renders safety design useless. I just read the article again. This is for integration of wind and solar and I truly believe that they are causing disruptions and equipment failures now with the tight frequency regulation. Electronics will not like this as they are not designed for a changing frequency. Need to figure out a way to prove this so the Government can be sued.
This could have a devastating affect on the sun’s magnetic field, so as to both increase and decrease cosmic ray flux and destroy life on earth, or maybe it’s just an attempt to jump start the sun ;>)
Back in the 1960s, my father was running equipment that used the 60 Hz electrical cycle to keep track of time, so he made some inquiries to find out how accurate it was. He was told that while small frequency anomalies could accumulate into a noticeable error during a day, each night in the middle of the night, the grid operators would purposely create whatever counteracting anomalies were needed to keep a cumulative error from building up over multiple days. I presume this middle of the night correction is what they are planning to eliminate.
Obviously, the old analog and electromechanical clocks would start accumulating errors with this change.
I’m thinking about ball-field light timers* that *always* seem to be off time-wise anyway in our city (off and on too early it seems; too early in the evening esp with the days as long they are this time of year!) … this will wreak just a little more havoc on water sprinkler timers and light timers stuck away in hard to get at places (even if they have power-off time keeping, they usually count line frequency then available because it has been so reliable in the past!)
Over time, the accrued – or more likely the loss of – tens of seconds will amount to minutes then tens of minutes …
*Outside lights should be controlled via sun/daylight sensors anyway!
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