Long voltage reduction

[suityou01]

Doom



Unlikely you are running induction motors, but the compressor on your fridge/freezer is now completely banjaxed.

HTH

PS Merry Christmas.

Undervoltage is very likely to screw fridges & freezers & not in a good way.

Most elektronicky stuff has very wide voltage ratings so isn't likely to get upset.

Spikes down the mains, however.

Yep. Next steps. Get an engineers report for fridge. Get an incident report from the lecky company.

Then submit your insurance claim. They will say they won't pay out for electrical failure. Then you tell them it's not failure it's damage. Then you get a derisory offer. Reject it and take the third derisory offer.

I realise it may not be worth all this hassle for the fridge itself, but the contents can run into £1000s

[vwdan]

Losing a phase only applies in 3 phase circuits, and would really balse up your PF correction.

Yeah, I know he is only going to be single phase but the 1/2 voltage made me wonder if its further up at the distribution level.

[suityou01]

Yeah, I know he is only going to be single phase but the 1/2 voltage made me wonder if its further up at the distribution level.

Thanks for your question. And it's a fair one. Electricity is generated at source in three phases. That is to say, each 'winding' is at 120 degrees to the next. Each power station produces power on 3 phases, and each power station is linked to the grid. Each power station needs to generate power 'in sync' with the other power stations. This is computer controlled nowadays, but in the years of yore was a much more manual affair. Coupling a power station to the grid involved throwing some whacking great oil filled switches, with bloody great wooden prods. If they weren't exaxctly aligned (in terms of matching the revolutions) then it got 'interesting'.

The 3 phase is then distributed by step up transformers to the main pylon network, distributing at 130kv, then stepped down to 11kv and distributed by smaller pylon to your local substation. These are the buzzy grey boxes you see in the middle of the housing estate protected by chain mail fence with danger high voltage notices.

This is then sent underground to your house. Still 3 phase. Every house in your street may well be on a different phase, that is you are on phase 1, neighbour on phase 2, neighbour +1 on phase 3. Then it repeats. So if in your street, on some neighbours are without power, this indicates a phase has gone. It does infrequently happen, I remember this happening as a kid.

In Xogs case, they dropped the voltage across all 3 phases. Usually due to a supply problem, and I'm guessing the grid got damaged so they lost a power source (ie power station) to that part of the grid.

HTH AITIW

[vwdan]

This is then sent underground to your house. Still 3 phase. Every house in your street may well be on a different phase, that is you are on phase 1, neighbour on phase 2, neighbour +1 on phase 3. Then it repeats. So if in your street, on some neighbours are without power, this indicates a phase has gone. It does infrequently happen, I remember this happening as a kid

HTH AITIW

Interesting, thanks. I've actually had this myself but didn't know it was phase related - I remember it well because our house was fine, but it transpired the fault was under our drive. So not only did they knock out our power deliberately, they were digging our drive up until 3am.

[suityou01]

Interesting, thanks. I've actually had this myself but didn't know it was phase related - I remember it well because our house was fine, but it transpired the fault was under our drive. So not only did they knock out our power deliberately, they were digging our drive up until 3am.

<<------ <ahem>

[AtW]

All fine here in Birmingham...

[AtW]

Do they sell 3 phase sofas?

Yeah, mainly in the 40-watt range...

[xoggoth]

F***! It's b*ggered my microwave fan! Unfortunately I tried to use it yesterday when I thought the supply it was back to normal, since the TV was working. Freezers/fridges seem ok fortunately.

[Archangel]

(dons brown overall)

I used to test the switches that switch 130kV supply at gec in the late 70's. Until we went on strike for months and I ditched it in favour of becoming a sparky.

(Removes brown overall)