The Lovely Weather

caz2703

I used to work off the Ballygowan Road funnily enough for the company who operate the National Grid for our wee country. I tell you I wouldn't want to have been a controller last night. Now electricity isn't my strong point but from what I gather every time the lights flickered there's a good chance that a fault had occured somewhere on the grid. Electricity has to be kept as close to an optimum frequency so you don't get power fluctuations. Every time a sub station or power line fails there's electricity on the grid that was destined for end users that needs to be gotten rid of quickly or you'll end up with power surges for others.

Well done my colleagues for keeping us on in Bangor although I wasn't risking it so candles were lit and ready just in case.

quintwins

our elec went off loads last night we assumed it was just the lights til the toaster popped early then we checked the alarm clock and it kept going off, the t.v was fine tho, aparently it holds charge slightly longer and cause it was flickering on and off, acording to my hubby anyway, who's expecting to fix loads of computers today aswell he says he always does when it's like that

spendaholiceejit

I am outside Dungannon, I have been snowed in since yesterday as unless you have a 4x4 you cant get from my house to the main road. Was out with the kids this morning and the drifts at the back of the house are up to my 3 year olds knees.

Its been snowing on and off all day. I have a Brother who got stuck on the Glenshane pass. He was on it for four hours yesterday evening. madness.

sleepymy

booklover wrote: »

Hi sleepy

Hope you are doing well

I sent u a message.


Hi Belfastgirl
yea we've got our torches at the ready.. itrs really bad isnt it?

Thanks Fiona, I've emailed a reply.

Brrrrrr! Carryduff was covered in snow this morning. I made the mistake of going the back road from the Hillhall and it was all skiddy slush and mini floods!

We thought the house was going to blow away last night, couldn't even watch the tv, it's a new LCD jobby and kept switching on and off with the flickering lights. I was thinking of putting the gazebo up last week with all the lovely weather, I'm so glad we didn't!

belfastgirl23

It was really nice in Belfast today except the 2 times I tried to go for a walk - snowed one time and hailed the other

Still a bit blowy though, hope the rest of you are ok!

casey_junior

caz2703 wrote: »

Every time a sub station or power line fails there's electricity on the grid that was destined for end users that needs to be gotten rid of quickly or you'll end up with power surges for others.

Well done my colleagues for keeping us on in Bangor although I wasn't risking it so candles were lit and ready just in case.

How do you get rid of it then, dont suppose you can open a valve and let it down the drain?

caz2703

The best example of getting rid of power ...

There's a reservoir somewhere on this island that can generate and disperse electricity. To generate they allow water to flow down into the reservoir and use hydroelectric to generate. To get rid of electricty they use heavy duty pumps to push the water back up into the higher dam. The electricity required for this is a good way to remove excess voltage from the grid.

God I need a life eh?

casey_junior

Is that really how its done?
How did they do it before they had this pumping thing?

sleepymy

caz2703 wrote: »

The best example of getting rid of power ...

There's a reservoir somewhere on this island that can generate and disperse electricity. To generate they allow water to flow down into the reservoir and use hydroelectric to generate. To get rid of electricty they use heavy duty pumps to push the water back up into the higher dam. The electricity required for this is a good way to remove excess voltage from the grid.

God I need a life eh?

Yea big nurd

caz2703

That's one method I know of and it's true! No idea what happened years ago but perhaps the lack of a major power cut in quite a few years suggests there wasn't anything in place?

The only power cut I've known in recent years was actually in Castlereagh when a sub-station near our building went boom. Given that we control the grid we knew what had happened before most of the public did as the sub-station doesn't get a lot of people going past it. And yes, we lost power as well but we have generators for just such an occassion as you can't have the grid being live with no-one to control it can you?