[R-390] Voltage regulation and vintage equipment

[Cecil Acuff]

Well I see from some reading on the net that this is in fact a practice used 
by some utilities...

Sorry about that....I can truly say in the 40 or so years I have lived in 
the deep south we have never had such...except when something was damaged on 
the electrical system and it's duration was no more than a few seconds....I 
guess that's why I made my statements.  It appears that these intentional 
brownouts are on systems that are running at or near capacity most of the 
time anyway and these steps are taken to try to force some of the load down.

My comments about it being a bad thing for stuff you own that runs on 
electricity was verified buy my search of the net.  Inductive loads don't 
like brownouts and will most likely generate more heat and can be damaged. 
Resistive loads don't care much but who has much that is pure resistive 
anymore.  Electric water heaters, stoves and lighting.

It seems to be universally recommended that once the brownout begins you 
turn off all non essential stuff like washing machines, electrical cooking 
and OH don't let me forget...Air Conditioning....right!  That's the load 
that is causing the problems to start with...

And what if you are not at home to do this...well something might just burn 
up...

I knew there were problems associated with low line voltage I just didn't 
expect utilities to do it intentionally...

I learn something new everyday!

Cecil...
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tim Shoppa" <tshoppa at wmata.com>
To: "Cecil Acuff" <chacuff at cableone.net>; <r-390 at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Thursday, August 09, 2007 9:26 AM
Subject: Re: [R-390] Voltage regulation and vintage equipment


Cecil wrote:

> I work for an electric utility and that's not something your utility would
> do...reducing voltage does not reduce load....it does however put the
> utility at risk of damage claims.  Things with compressors and electric
> motors will not function properly and will overheat.

Well, I don't know why they do it, but if you look at the press releases,
PJM US Mid-Atlantic in my area and ConEd in Brooklyn and Manhattan
were announcing the brownouts (by 5 to 10 percent) as part of their
policy the past day or two. What I saw in my house was closer to
20 percent from the usual (although maybe 10 percent from the low band).

Simple loads (e.g. light bulbs) will reduce power use if you cut the
supply voltage. (Even though light bulbs are not linear resistors,
cutting voltage will always cut current). Part of my post was
wondering if for example AC compressors and computer power
supplies work as simply (I suspect many switching supplies will
just suck more current as you cut their input voltage).

Tim.