Power Interruptions

[bennie]

I would like to get an opinion from Charlie Eldridge on this issue. All others are welcome.

Every so often I get a short power interruption in my home. It will cause all my digital devices to start blinking.

The duration of outage is less than one second.
I have been informed that this is a common occurance.

When this takes place, I try to call PGE to verify the outage is the service and not a problem with my premises system. I never have any luck. I then go to my neighbors and check to find out if their power dumped like mine.

I have suggested to the utility commission to require PGE, to post on a website, when the switching event occurs.

Charlie, do you know of a system like this?

 

[bob]

Re: Power Interruptions

Bennie
What you are describing sound like instantaneous operations of the substation breaker. These can be caused by many things. It could be tree limbs
brushing a primary conductor, squirrels,lightning
car hitting pole or many other possibilities. The
utility may not even be aware that it happened.
The utility may have a counter in the substation
that will show that an instantaneous operation happened but not the day or time. These operations generally will happen more in a rural area that in the more populated areas.

 

[charlie]

Re: Power Interruptions

Bob, it sounds to me like you have had a lot of utility experience. You answered the question better than I would have without a thorough knowledge of the serving electric utility.

Bennie, the public utility commission will have standards that will delineate how many interruptions are permitted. The one for the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission has all that laid out and is based on rural vs. urban areas. I would assume yours would do something similar.

 

[pwhitton]

Re: Power Interruptions

LOL Bennie I had this same problem at my old condo. I tried the PC way and called my local utility and was blown off by the customer service rep. I then got on the phone with one the utility engineers (sometimes being an EE has it's privileges)and explained to him what is happening. Come to find out there was a branch on a tree that would hit the wires on windy days and the local recloser on my street does not have any data collection on it so the util never knew what was happening. They cut the branch and everything ws fine. I don't know why the branch never started on fire or burnt out though, you think it would after a while. So long story short I agree with Bob.

 

[charlie tuna]

Re: Power Interruptions

power companies will deny every outage and power bump you came across --- unless you have a "certified" data logger to monitor and record the incidents. then they seem to listen - problem is they cost about twelve grand..........