African generator

[Andy B]

A girl I konw is working in Africa in quite a remote region. She sent me a message on facebook asking this:

[h=5]a question for you electricity wise one.
Why, when we have power outages, does the electricity work from some plugs in the office? Our electricity has gone out and the fan is still on. yesterday our electricity went out but the fridge stayed on???[/h]I replied:

Must be getting power from another source. Do you have a local generator and also another main supply?

She replied:

The generator was unplugged so it must be a different mains supply? Weird thing is every time we have an outage, a different part of the office maintains power.

Can anyone suggest a reason?

 

[Silly Sausage]

Voodoo Magic!

 

[Marvo]

Maybe the office has a 3-phase DB and only 1 phase is suffering the outage. That said with it being Africa I would never discount the voodoo theory as stated by Archie.

 

[Andy B]

Maybe the office has a 3-phase DB and only 1 phase is suffering the outage. That said with it being Africa I would never discount the voodoo theory as stated by Archie.

I thought that, but it seems strange that the sockets would be fed by different phases. Must be the reason though.

 

[Marvo]

It's not the norm in domestic installations but it's not uncommon in offices and commercial installations.

 

[ruston]

Maybe the power hasn't gone out and just local circuits are out and untrained people are not aware .