[R-390] Voltage regulation and vintage equipment

Fri Aug 10 16:42:18 EDT 2007

What you could do is install a residential line conditioner, and
voltage regulator. As you know they regulate the voltage within your
house and the conditioner cleans up the electrical signal and reduces
line noise substantially.  This would make for much better regulation
on the thermostat on your fry pan and improve the flavor of any Polish
Sausage you might want to cook. 8^)

Ken

On 8/10/07, Steve & Carol <srosenb2 at nycap.rr.com> wrote:
> I worked in Electric System Operations for 30 years (8 yrs for Keyspan
> Long
> Island and 22 for the New York Independent System Operator) and as Cecil
> has
> dicovered on the net electric utilities can and will reduce voltage at
> the distribution level. It can be done by 3, 5 or 8% but 5% is the most
> common reduction used. Many companies across the nation have this
> available to use if needed to mitigate load. The effectiveness of
> reducing voltage has been reduced over the years because of regulated
> loads like
> computers, UPS systems, some lighting systems etc. It is not used very
> often on large scale. It can be applied to just one substation or as
> many as needed.
> I looked at it as short term aid that tends to dissipate due to things
> like AC compress-
> sors cycling on and running longer than normal.
>
> As far as having 98 volts at someone's house, if that were me I would
> shut down my AC and other high load devices to protect them and mitigate
> the problem. Voltage that low can occur for many reasons. The obvious
> being the system being stressed to the max but normally there would be
> enough resources to do better than 98 volts. The substation tap changer
> could be stuck or locked out, this happens when two transformers are in
> parallel and get out of step, the transmission voltage coming into the
> sub may be to low due to a reactive shortage on the system. Distribution
> caps on your circuit may have tripped, shorted out or failed to come on
> line. These caps are very important to maintaining normal voltage on the
> whole circuit as the loads increase. Some of them are on all the time,
> some are controlled remotely via radio, some by voltage sensing relays
> and also by time clocks. Also the circuit may have been reconfigured due
> to problem somewhere and you might have ended up on different circuit
> that now has to much load on it. Distribution circuits have many
> switches and tie points that can opened or closed for repair work or to
> clear faulted sections.
>
> Steve,
> WA2TTP
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Cecil Acuff" <chacuff at cableone.net>
> To: "Tim Shoppa" <tshoppa at wmata.com>; <r-390 at mailman.qth.net>
> Sent: Thursday, August 09, 2007 2:56 PM
> Subject: Re: [R-390] Voltage regulation and vintage equipment
>
>
> > 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.
> >
> >
> >
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-- 
Kenneth A. Crips, W7ITC Home of the Chew Crew,  Red Headed
Irish Terrier House Ninjas, Chic', and Cowboy
10th degree black belts in Mouch Fue, Bed Fue, and
Con Artist Fue.