Power Fluctuations

[freemanconstruction]

In my personal residence, we've recently started experiencing power fluctuations ("brown-outs"). We've checked with neighbors, but they're are not experiencing anything. We've not added any new appliances or equipment that might be overloading the system. Any idea what might be causing this?

 

[infinity]

If this is only occurring within your residence I would check for a loose or broken neutral connection between the POCO drop and your service panel.

 

[brian john]

I would check for any loose connections, this will require the assistance of the local utility as they should check their equipment also (at the transformer).

Check the circuit breakers for proper seating on the bus, if you have a portable load you can place on the branch circuits check the panel for fall of potential, in particular have the meter pulled and check the meter stabs.

 

[928Doug]

Hi, First time post

I lived in North Carolina for a while and I had a similar situation. I called my power company and they checked the UG feeders from the transformer to the house and found that I lost a leg. The meter they used pin pointed the location of the break and when they dug down to it, they found that a large rock had worn through the insulation and eventually through the conductor. NC uses unsheathed triplex and they don't pipe it. I don't know if this is your situation but it is what I experienced. Hope it helps.

 

[sguinn]

I agree with all the other guys, but here's one I bet not many of you have seen. I got a call last summer from a guy whose house was only two years old. He says that part of his lights are real dim and the rest are real bright. Voltage at the panel was 48v on "a" leg but over 160v on "b" leg. I immeadiately thought loose neutral, but upon further investigation panel neut. was good and so was meter neut. at disconnect. I advised client to contact the utility company because I was 99% sure it was on their side. The guy calls me the next day and says(now get this) the utility guy opened up the ground transformer and the transformer neutral was almost completley ate into by fire ants! Whether this was the actual case or whether it wasn't torqued down enough at the installation and the guy was just lying to cover his or his brethrens behind I don't know but it makes for a good story.

 

[SmithBuilt]

Ants you say? :wink:

 

[cschmid]

wow fire ants sure beat a squirrel act on our transformer...but we experienced allot of brown out here and after checking everything and talking with POCO; POCO did some amps draws on main transformer and changed out the transformer..I guess it was maxed out and when POCO would vary the voltage down 10% we would experience a brown out..POCO has the right to vary the voltage by ten percent either way here..how about in your area??

 

[robbietan]

Our utility also has that plus/minus 10% on voltage.

 

[ptonsparky]

Yea, our POCO messes with the voltage around here to. Gets down to about 120 in the summer. Public owned utilities, low rates, good service, and generally easy to work with.

 

[catchtwentytwo]

I agree with all the other guys, but here's one I bet not many of you have seen. I got a call last summer from a guy whose house was only two years old. He says that part of his lights are real dim and the rest are real bright. Voltage at the panel was 48v on "a" leg but over 160v on "b" leg. I immeadiately thought loose neutral, but upon further investigation panel neut. was good and so was meter neut. at disconnect. I advised client to contact the utility company because I was 99% sure it was on their side. The guy calls me the next day and says(now get this) the utility guy opened up the ground transformer and the transformer neutral was almost completley ate into by fire ants! Whether this was the actual case or whether it wasn't torqued down enough at the installation and the guy was just lying to cover his or his brethrens behind I don't know but it makes for a good story.

Check this out http://fireants.utk.edu/Webpages/electricalequipmentandhousing.htm

 

[nakulak]

30 yrs ago I built some town houses and one homeowner had same problem. we thought he was a nut case, but he was very persistent. we couldn't find anything wrong in the house. finally utility co sent out some really smart guys and it turned out that a 3' spike (1/2" rebar) from a small retaining wall at the end of the row of townhouses had nicked one of the secondaries. the part of the bar that nicked the conductor was bent in a nice arc.

 

[sreeja]

Employing sample power systems, the control effect of ESS for suppressing the power flow fluctuation of the wind farm is studied, and the different configurations for connecting ESS to the multiple WTG is also compared. In addition to these, when the wind power supplies a significant part of the load in the sample power systems, ESS application for mitigating the speed variations of other generators caused by the wind gust is studied. The response of the WTG/ESS to a system disturbance is also studied. In this project, an example system consisting of multiple WTG and ESS connected to a power grid is modeled using the Power System Simulator for Engineering (PSS/E) software, and the control strategy for this system is also studied.