Local power cut...

[DNS1]

As some of you know, I'm a domestic only person... Very curious about what happened tonight in our area.

Was walking along the street when all the street lights went out and burglar alarms started going off... Such a pain in the backside as I was just to get to the chip shop, which promptly shut!

Far ends of the street had power, but nothing in the middle. Came back on about an hour later, then about 20 minutes ago we had a momentary cut again.

Just wondered if one of the industrially minded sparks on here could shed light on what happened. I'll assume it was an issue with the local substation.

Want to give an educated answer to the people who immediately said "Dave, you're a sparks, what's happened?!"

 

[trev]

We had a similar thing a few weeks back, one of the neighbours asked me (for the same reason) and I couldn't be bothered to explain. So thinking on my feet I came up with the idea of transient phase disruptions caused by abnormal solar flare activity. I told one guy that I could really go into the physics of it but he probably wouldn't understand but that activity on the sun can affect specific areas but not others even on the same street. A while later, because of the earth's rotation, it could have been another section that was affected.
Thinking back it probably would have been easier to tell him there was a problem at the substation serving our part of the road.
It was tons more fun making it up as I went along though.

 

[Deleted member 26818]

This is my understanding:
In many instances, auto re-closers are used.
They trip out on overload, then after a few seconds automatically re-close.
This will either blow away the fault, or cause another trip.
Can happen a number of times before either the fault is blown away, or the re-closer stops re-closing.

 

[DNS1]

trev, you sound like you've got the same sense of humour I've got... Our phone rang earlier and it was a bloke called "john" who was asking about any accidents I'd had in the past few years. I told him I was glad he'd called because I'd been run over by an enemy tank whilst taking part in an invasion force, and, whilst paralysed in the road been shot by a rocket propelled grenade!

Made it all up on the spot by the call centre --- didn't know what to say after a few minutes, so just hung up!

spinlondon, thanks for your post. Out of interest, how do the DNO know if one of their substations has gone down?

 

[Deleted member 26818]

People phone up to complain.

 

[Brightspark2]

This will either blow away the fault

Could you expand scholar?...

What type of fault?...if it was a short on the cable this couldn't be done?...

 

[Guest111]

Some streets have link boxes set in the pavement,and some of these boxes contain fuses which protect a section of the street if one or more of these fuses blow then it takes out the supply to properties within that section.these are primarily on older streets and can be recognised by a cast iron square with a concrete middle,you lift this and inside is a sealed lid to keep out moisture,this is bolted down with a gasket in between the 2 halves,inside this are either links or fuses which are removed using insulated box spanners,and can be used to isolate a section of cable when needed.