Randy
Well-known member
goldbrick said:Thanks, interesting article. I'm not a power guy and I don't understand why the frequency of the grid would drop if it was over-loaded. The voltage - yes, that happens all the time - but I thought the frequency was always 60.0 no matter what. Maybe it's due to the fact that it was so very close to just failing completely. Pretty scary unless TX gets it's act together and updates its power systems.
Think of the frequency of the power system like a belt-driven table saw. When it is free running at a steady state, that equates to 60 Hz on a power system. When you shove a big piece of wood through the saw to cut it (similar to adding to the power system load), you can hear the motor on the table saw slow down (equivalent to power system lower frequency). When the wood passes through the saw, the speed of the saw goes back up to the original steady state speed.
If the frequency of the power system gets too low, starting at 1.5 Hz and up, steps are taken to get back to 60 Hz, including ramping up generation output, or even shedding electrical load, to keep the system stable or it could be in danger of collapse...