Electronics > Power/Renewable Energy/EV's

Report on recent widespread power cut in UK

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mikeselectricstuff:
Interesting read, The more I learn about the complexities of national  power distribution the more I'm amazed at how reliable it all is

https://www.nationalgrideso.com/document/151081/download

fourtytwo42:
Seems as usual with these things despite all the shrill squawking in the media everything worked as intended, some idiot on the radio this morning was asking how big the fines would be levied by the regulator upon national grid  :palm: but then that was a BBC journo (so called).

The only obvious flaw is some numkin forgot to test the fancy foreign rolling stock properly or specify it adequately. Same goes for the signalling power supplies except it's source is unknown......how on earth does somebody design a psu so badly it locks itself out as a result of a minor droop in grid frequency, sounds totally unfit for purpose to me!!

Someone:

--- Quote from: fourtytwo42 on August 21, 2019, 01:01:53 pm ---The only obvious flaw is some numkin forgot to test the fancy foreign rolling stock properly or specify it adequately. Same goes for the signalling power supplies except it's source is unknown......how on earth does somebody design a psu so badly it locks itself out as a result of a minor droop in grid frequency, sounds totally unfit for purpose to me!!
--- End quote ---
These are all configurable "safety" systems, different operators/regions all have different requirements for large loads/generators to disconnect. Its not surprising that the trains required a technician to reset them with some procedure the drivers did not know of, it could even have been an intentional design to avoid repeated attempts to restart.

TLDR, huge complex system of many interconnected devices had some of them configured with cutoff limits that weren't what the regulator/operator expected from their specifications

fourtytwo42:

--- Quote from: Someone on August 21, 2019, 11:37:40 pm ---
--- Quote from: fourtytwo42 on August 21, 2019, 01:01:53 pm ---The only obvious flaw is some numkin forgot to test the fancy foreign rolling stock properly or specify it adequately. Same goes for the signalling power supplies except it's source is unknown......how on earth does somebody design a psu so badly it locks itself out as a result of a minor droop in grid frequency, sounds totally unfit for purpose to me!!
--- End quote ---
These are all configurable "safety" systems, different operators/regions all have different requirements for large loads/generators to disconnect. Its not surprising that the trains required a technician to reset them with some procedure the drivers did not know of, it could even have been an intentional design to avoid repeated attempts to restart.

TLDR, huge complex system of many interconnected devices had some of them configured with cutoff limits that weren't what the regulator/operator expected from their specifications

--- End quote ---

Comes to the same thing configurable or not, those responsible for defining the settings were obviously inadequately qualified and insufficiently supervised. Load shedding is not required at that level as a train only consumes a few megawatts, reliability of service is required and rightly expected, poorly trained, supervised and in particular inexperienced staff should not be allowed to tamper with such equipment nor define how it is to operate IMOP.

mikeselectricstuff:
Pretty stupid that a tech had to physically go out to reset though - this is the sort of thing that should be handled by remote management, or a code entry on a keypad etc.

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