>> I’ve been hearing local chatter suggesting that my electric company has switched from 60Hz to 40Hz... Hopefully some knowledgeable FReeper has some info.
ROFLMAO! Okay! I’ll see if I can help.
It’s horse-hockey. Pure, plain, and simple.
For only one, small (but obvious) engineering point: most electricity is generated one way or another by Big, Expensive. Rotating. Machinery of some sort.
To make this Big. Expensive. Machinery rotate 33% slower is, well, intractable.
But here’s an easy test for you to try. Can you lay hands on an old-fashioned electric clock? The kind that ran off an electric motor and made hands spin around? Those clocks depend on 60Hz power for their timekeeping. If your utility has slowed to 40Hz, the clock won’t keep time. IT’ll be slow. And by *how much* slow, you can calculate the line frequency of your ElecCo.
But you’re wasting your time if you try this, because they are NOT reducing the line frequency. I guarantee you.
Another point: what exactly would they be SAVING by reducing line frequency? ANSWER: nothing.
Thank you. I was leaning toward disbelief based on the fact that my electric company doesn’t operate in a closed grid. Seems like any change would cause conflicts within the grid as a whole.