It hertz when you do that – power grid to stop regulating 60 Hz frequency

Watts Up With That? ^ | June 25,2011 | Anthony Watts

[Melas]

Thank you.

[MindBender26]

Right, but with the grids sharing power between the plants on the grid and the rolling demands, what happens when one plant is more than 10 degrees out of phase with others on the grid?

[bigheadfred]

Nothing is going to change.

THAT doesn't fit very well into my not trusting bordering on hating the bastards plan very well thank you very much. (grin)

SAVE THE SALMON!!!!/s

[Free Vulcan]

That is good. We got a heavy baseload due to industry here, it’s bad enough already because the local util Alliant is notorious for their spikes. They’ve already cost many a headache for the area plants - millions over the years in downtime, maintenance, peak load surcharges, etc. They don’t need any more foolishness.

[dynoman]

How is is physically for one plant to be 10 degrees out of phase with another? IMO the only time that might happen is when starting up and syncing to the grid, our auto sync control logic will not allow that.

[driftdiver]

"this is just a way to let the variable inputs of solar and wind derived energy have access to the grid with minimal compliance on their part to match what already is the standard. "

Meaning its a way of letting dirty power into the system.

[The Theophilus]

We'll be washing clothes in the rain barrel if we don't get these idiots out of office, soon.

Another Freeper informed me a few months ago that in his State, its a criminal event to capture rain water. Even so, I'm sure the same EPA would also criminalize mixing chemicals (aka "laundry detergent") in with natural rain and thus you would be a felon, environmental terrorist and lose your Constitutional Rights to have a gun or to vote.

They would rather we all smell like hippies.

[Pontiac]

In the future, more use of renewable energy from the sun and wind will mean more variations in frequency on the grid, McClelland said. Solar and wind power can drop off the grid with momentary changes in weather. Correcting those deviations is expensive and requires instant back-up power to be always at the ready, he said.

Even though she did not intend this as a criticism of ‘Renewable’ energy it is a damning one.

Solar and wind power are highly unreliable and as such should not be more than small percentage of our grid supply.

Solar and wind power should be limited to those who want to live ‘off the grid’ and to those places where power lines simply do not go.

It simply is not logical to increase dependence on an undependable technology. This is not to say that the modern solar and wind technology are not producing a good product. It is a simple fact that in most places in this country the wind does not blow reliably and the sun does not always shine and the sun goes down every night.

For the vast majority of applications sun and wind power simply do not make financial or strategic sense.

And as far as loosing a wind turbine or two there should be little effect to grid frequency caused by such a loose. However in a system where such machines make up a significant part of the load carrying capacity of the system lose of system voltage could cause serious problems.

When grid voltage falls significantly below 110 volts the windings on electric motors begin to heat up and can suffer serious damage.

Many of the large motors in this country are used to provide essential services such as pumping drinking water and sewage. These motors are not off the shelf items and may have lead times of months or even years. Many of them will have auto shutdown safety control systems to prevent damage should line voltage drop. But many older motors do not and they could be damaged by line voltage drops.

Our country is flirting with disaster in pursuing this politically correct renewable energy strategy.

[dynoman]

The AP article references FERC. Here's a few graphs from FERC that show current frequency variations; They already drop much lower 59.99 Hz. I've never seen less than 59.93 or more than 60.02 where I work, we are in MISO (https://www.midwestiso.org/Pages/Home.aspx) the upper midwest.

[relictele]

Flippant but serious question....musicians, especially guitarists, have long struggled with 60 cycle hum (although most equipment transforms AC to DC).

I know that Germany, for example, uses 50 Hz (this caused problems in the early days of Moog synthesizers that relied on the mains power frequency for timing purposes).

Will abandonment of the 60 Hz standard affect ground loop hum?

[relictele]

Flippant but serious question....musicians, especially guitarists, have long struggled with 60 cycle hum (although most equipment transforms AC to DC).

I know that Germany, for example, uses 50 Hz (this caused problems in the early days of Moog synthesizers that relied on the mains power frequency for timing purposes).

Will abandonment of the 60 Hz standard affect ground loop hum?

[dynoman]

Here’s a .pdf that might outline what is proposed, I haven’t read through it yet but will;

http://www.nerc.com/docs/standards/dt/Project_2007-12_Draft_1_Comment_Report_2011_05_05.pdf

[bvw]

Right! I knew there was some impact, but it was rattling round in the back of my mind. The generator and bearings are somewhat sensitive to being too far out of design frequencies. Something called moments of inertia: harmonics.

Well, my career, or perhaps that is my professional inclination, is based on breaking things, so they can be fixed or redone better the next go round. Good designs are those that are robust. And how does one learn to be robust? By learning to survive and thrive (at least somewhat) upon the injection of disturbance!

[The Theophilus]

It will be burning up motors,transformers,electronics etc...

A few years ago I was trying to figure out why the air conditioning motor outside would make howling (bearings) sounds at certain times of the day (between 4PM-8PM). My theory was that the voltage or the frequency was off standard and it would cause the motor to heat up because it was operating outside of its design specifications. The heating up would swell the metal parts so that they are mismatched and the bearings would begin to seize.

My neighbor, a master electrician, confirmed certain aspects of that thinking in that A/C motors are designed to operate at certain frequencies and become inefficient creating more heat when pushed outside its comfort zone in voltage.

The bottom line is, yes it will damage equipment, but what is even more puzzling to me is that it causes equipment to run far less efficiently using more energy to perform the same amount of work. Why would the government advocate a useless policy that only produces less efficiency and more failures? Then I realized that we are talking about the united States government and the Malevolent Kakistocracy that it has devolved into.

[gr8eman]

It definitely will. A lot of alarm circuits use the 60 hz frequency for timing to guard against thieves from spoofing the power supply. Without the 60 hz power source the boards will fail. Found that out while installing an American made system in Europe that uses 50 hz.

[dynoman]

Wow, that’s 164 pages. Shouldn’t read that on my day off!!

[JimC214]

If this is true, how would this effect the hum from a Strat single coil pick up?

[dynoman]

I see one of my co-workers is on the NERC Standards Review Subcommittee...

[Pontiac]

Another Freeper informed me a few months ago that in his State, its a criminal event to capture rain water. Even

I think the Freeper may exaggerate that it is criminal to capture rainwater. But it was probably a finable offence.

In western states it may have been the intent to prevent farmers dependant on irrigation from building unauthorized dams there by limiting the amount of water flowing downstream to neighboring farms.

But these days it is fashionable here in Ohio for the county agents to promote rain barrels to home owners for collecting rainwater for gardening use.

But it was illegal in my youth for home owners that had cisterns in their homes to use that water. But this was because your sewer bill was based on your city water usage. Those with cisterns could in effect cheat the system by using cistern water for washing cloths or flushing toilets. (it is probably still illegal)

[mtg]

Something tells me it will ‘disrupt’ more than clocks.

You're right. This is going to cause MAJOR havoc for most electronic devices, unless they run only on batteries. As an example, European televisions run on 50 Hz. Try running a European model TV on 60 Hz. and see what happens. Some brands have a switch on them so you can switch between 50 and 60 Hz.