Power Outage - Fucking third world cuntry

[Jantar]

How many here remember the big blackout of 1987?

At 7:05 pm on Feb 6th 1987 the entire top half of the North Island went black. A circuit breaker at Whakamaru in the Central Waikato exploded, and the flying debris disabled the protection that should have isolated the fault. Whakamaru, Maraetai and Waipapa power stations all shut down and were isolated from the grid. All power lines into and out of Whakamaru were disconnected at their remote ends. Huntly, Karipiro and Arapuni tried to carry the entire top half of the north Island. It was a losing battle, Karapiro tripped off, Huntly which had been picking up went out in sympathy and poor Arapuni with 120 MW of generation tried for almost 60 seconds to supply the 1200 MW of demand in Hamilton, Auckland and the far north. It was a cascade failure, and every place north of Taupo went black. It took 3 hours and 20 minutes to restore power. Back then all power station and substations were fully manned and all controllers were trained in fault handling and system restoration.

In 1992 Transpower moved the North Island Control Center form Whakamaru to Hamilton, substations were de-manned and a new computer control system was installed. The experienced controllers warned that in any future cascade failures restoration of supply would be compromised. 5 Controllers out of 13 resigned in protest against the move. By 1995 ECNZ de-manned and remote controlled most of their power stations and most experienced Operators were made redundant.

In 1996 Max Bradford spilt up ECNZ into competing companies, Transpower was made sole operator/owner of the grid, and the electricty market was established. Transpower no longer controlled the power stations, but could dispatch them as result of the market offer and bid process.

Whereas, under the old system Transpower could control which stations generated to maintain efficiency and security, that control was now lost. However Transpower still had to maintain grid security.

Today Transpower use an N-1 contingency system to maintin grid security. That is they dispatch electricity in such a manner that they can lose any single transmission circuit, or any single generator and still maintain supply to all parts of New Zealand at the correct voltage and frequency.

What happened yesterday far exceeded these parameters. An earth wire above a 110KV tower failed in the wind. Normally this would not cause any issues at all. However in this instance the wind blew the wire across, not one, but two circuits. Both circuits take power from Otahuhu to Central Auckland. If it had have taken out two separate circuits, (eg Pakuranga - Otahuhu and Penrose-Otahuhu) then no outage would have occured. But this fault took out two parrallel circuits. The resulting surge also shutdown the country's largest generator, which just happens to be at Otahuhu. So now we have not one, but 3 simultaneous faults, ie a cascade situation.

There is not a city in the world that can sustain a cascade fault. Auckland shut down.

Remember all those substations that were de-manned? No longer are there trained staff on the ground ready and able to restore this type of fault. Auckland went withgout power for over half a day. Just think how much longer it would have been if a circuit breaker at Whakamaru had exploded.

[Karma]

What happened yesterday far exceeded these parameters. An earth wire above a 110KV tower failed in the wind. Normally this would not cause any issues at all. However in this instance the wind blew the wire across, not one, but two circuits. Both circuits take power from Otahuhu to Central Auckland. If it had have taken out two separate circuits, (eg Pakuranga - Otahuhu and Penrose-Otahuhu) then no outage would have occured. But this fault took out two parrallel circuits. The resulting surge also shutdown the country's largest generator, which just happens to be at Otahuhu. So now we have not one, but 3 simultaneous faults, ie a cascade situation.

There is not a city in the world that can sustain a cascade fault. Auckland shut down.

But this my point...

Why was the system set in the first place that two lines run so close together like that? isn't the point of a parallel line supposed to be that it will run if the other is taken out? Not if they're both in the same place...

[Jantar]

But this my point...

Why was the system set in the first place that two lines run so close together like that? isn't the point of a parallel line supposed to be that it will run if the other is taken out? Not if they're both in the same place...

Such a fault is so rare as to be treated as extremely unlikely, yet similar faults have happened in the past, and for some reason seem to affect Mt Roskill and Penrose more than any other substations. I can no longer remeber the exact years, but ther was a cas of a chicken coop being blown into the Mt Roskill substation and blacking out most of Auckland in the late 1970's. A circus erecting a tent under the Penrose circuits in the early 1980's took out most of Auckland.... etc, etc. All of these made national news.

Last week a fault at Otira, similar to yesterday's, shutdown the entire west Coast of the South Island. Who heard anything about it?

[sAsLEX]

But this my point...

Why was the system set in the first place that two lines run so close together like that? isn't the point of a parallel line supposed to be that it will run if the other is taken out? Not if they're both in the same place...

here is my solution in MS CAD

[Jantar]

In addition to your new link, all the other circuits would need to be upgraded to handle the potential loading. The possible short circuit currents would require new earth mats, and ALL circuit breakers in the loop to be upgraded.

A new substation (Mangere or Henderson area) )would be more efficient, quicker to establish and cheaper. Half of all current circuits from the south to go directly to the new susbstation.

[Karma]

here is my solution in MS CAD

Quality mate, pure quality...

You didn't do any work on Toy Story did you?

[sAsLEX]

Quality mate, pure quality...

You didn't do any work on Toy Story did you?

Lead animator in Cars, you can see the subtlty of the ray tracing in the above diagram!

[Pathos]

And the funny thing is Auckland probably lost more in productivity than they would because of a v8 race.


:/ just to rub it in.

[inlinefour]

I agree with you Dover - Nuclear power is the way to go - One should be built at Marsden Point as the landacape is rooted by the Refinery anyway, and if the thing melts down the radiation cloud will blow into the Pacific.

I think those who want Nuke power can sod off to where ever they came from, or go to the far que. I was up Marsden Point way last week with the boy on the z50 down on the beach. Nothing rooted at all, bloody great area in top condition. I find this whole issue rather amusing and how some people cannot cope with power. Anyone would think its a natural disaster the way that some AKLers are still preforming. Watched Cambell Live last evening, fark I laughed! Imagine the preformance if AKL had to endure what they are going through down the South Island.

[idb]

Put a nuclear station on the Maui platform off New Plymouth when it finishes up.
That would be an ideal place!

[far queue]

I think those who want Nuke power can sod off to where ever they came from, or go to the far que.

You called

[Jantar]

We are currently experiencing severe gales (force 9 on the beaufort scale). The result being that the power has been intermittant all night, and finally went out at 07:08 this morning. it came back on at 09;45. Thats two and a half hours without power. I was sure that such a long ouutage would make the national news as during that time I could't watch TV or check my email, or even have a latte. Instead I checked that our roof was holding, nailed up some timber that was working loose in the shed, had an orange juice and read a book.

But I've checked, and there has been no mention of our power cut on the news. Apparently outages have to happen in Auckland to be deemed significant.

[sAsLEX]

We are currently experiencing severe gales (force 9 on the beaufort scale). The result being that the power has been intermittant all night, and finally went out at 07:08 this morning. it came back on at 09;45. Thats two and a half hours without power. I was sure that such a long ouutage would make the national news as during that time I could't watch TV or check my email, or even have a latte. Instead I checked that our roof was holding, nailed up some timber that was working loose in the shed, had an orange juice and read a book.

But I've checked, and there has been no mention of our power cut on the news. Apparently outages have to happen in Auckland to be deemed significant.

Your work mate was outside at 4 in the morning nailing his wondow back on lol suprised he didnt get blown away.

[Lou Girardin]

But I've checked, and there has been no mention of our power cut on the news. Apparently outages have to happen in Auckland to be deemed significant.

Doesn't fruit still grow without power?

[Jantar]

Your work mate was outside at 4 in the morning nailing his wondow back on lol suprised he didnt get blown away.

I warned him last week that he should have his house guy wired down this time of year.

Doesn't fruit still grow without power?

It should do so. The only thing is that the trees are being uprooted by the wind.