When I lived in the sticks and was on the co-op, when we had a blizzard we had brown outs. Didn't hurt us, as we a generator, food, beer, ammo, gas and propane.
That was due to inclement weather rather than to much power being used.
Ok, but doesn't extreme temps cause people to use more power? Maybe more than can be handled a small plant?
That's why I mentioned above " Brown outs" . Texas has those a lot , whether this is from that or not is hard to say right now. or when I posted it that is.
Again..I've lived in Texas for 45 years and never experienced a brown out.... not once.
I wasn't saying YOU personally experienced it, I was simply just mentioning " BROWN OUTS" as a general cause of power failures.
I had it backwards anyway it is not from summer it is from Winter..........
COLD WEATHER BROWN OUTS
I work for a large electric utility company. The office building I work in is currently operating on half power. I arrived to work this morning with half the lights off, all of the non-essential s turned off, and an email message that the heat will be on and off intermittently during the day. The email went on to prohibit the use of personal space heaters.
Why? The temperature outside is 12 degree’s Fahrenheit. During extreme temperatures this electric utility browns out all of their offices. To be clear, I am only talking about the electric utilities office buildings. The reason given for the brown out is the extra load on the entire regional grid. While it is true that the entire regional grid is experiencing a greater load, the brown out of a few office buildings does little if anything to reduce the overall load. What I believe this brown out is really about is making a political statement. The utility always preaches to the customers to reduce their loads, be more efficient and save energy. So the utility is practicing what it preaches.
But this brown out reveals something about the mentality and will of the utility. Given the ability to control power usage, the utility will use it as it deems fit. And this is where smart meters come in. Smart meters are being pilot tested in several small test markets in this region. The smart grid is being sold as a way to save money for the consumer and add convenience. However the real reason the utilities want a smart grid, is to reduce their operating cost, and have the ability to monitor and control the entire grid from a single control center.
In an interview with Jim Rogers of Duke Energy, Alex Chadwick of Burnanenergyjournal.com discusses the smart grid and how it would work. In the conversation the terms “demand side management” and “central control” are mentioned. When asked about how the smart grid would work Jim Rogers gave this example.
“Maybe the best example for me to share with you is this. We’ve done a project in south charlotte where we put sensing devices in the equipment within a home. And when someone makes a decision to start their dishwasher, they push the button, there is a delay as it sends a signal to the refrigerator. The refrigerator cycles down and once it reaches a certain level the dishwasher kicks in, completes its work and then sends a signal back to the refrigerator and it cycles back up.”
This seems like a good idea right? What’s wrong with not having your dishwasher and refrigerator running at the same time? While that kind of management seems innocent, it’s easy to think of many ways this kind of control can be used to disrupt our lives.
What does this mean for the consumer of the future hooked into the smart grid? It means that when the utility deems that the overall load is exceeding capacity the control center can send a message to every homes meter in the region to go on economy mode. Want to watch TV? Sorry, the utility deems that as non-essential, your TV won’t turn on. Want to take a nice hot bath? Sorry, the utility deems that as non essential also, so you’ll have to wait till next week to bathe.
At the same time the smart control grid is being built, the source of affordable plentiful power is being destroyed. Coal plants are being shut down all over the nation. With the EPA’s heavy burdens and regulations, coal plants just can’t make a profit. And once coal is completely eliminated as a source of energy, the cost to the consumer will rise and the reliability of the entire grid will be weakened.
“Duke Energy leader Jim Rogers on smart grids & brownouts”
Alex Chadwick, BURN Host
Duke Energy leader Jim Rogers on smart grids & brownouts
