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Couldn't they create a 'black-start' grid (with a number of highly-calibrated consumers of electricity) so they could bring the power online quickly, then flick a switch to change the power-plants from energising grid B (the emergency grid) to energising grid A (the commercial grid) to make this smoother? Disclaimer: I'm not an electrical student. My apologies in advance if this is an utterly ridiculous idea.
Thank you so much for that awesome model! i hope to build my own generator soon that was a huge help. thanks again for such awesome content, i cannot understate how much i appreciate it!!!!!
I operated an small data center. The coffee maker was plugged in the backup generator circuit, because its essential equipment for the operation of the data center.
This reminds me so much of running out of power in Factorio. Your miners require energy to dig up the coal that's required to generate energy, and when you restore power there's often a spike in demand as all of the belts and other buffers have emptied out so all the machines are working at 100% capacity. It's amazing how the game can approximate real-world problems like this.
Satisfactory has similar issues when performing a black start. I have had to separate the power grids so I can bring the plants back online without causing a load inrush.
I'm a submarine nuclear electrician's mate in the US Navy and watching you explain voltage regulation and generator synchronization has put a huge smile on my face. My ship had basically an identical synchroscope to the one you showed and matching voltages/frequencies is an important part of operating our electric plants.
I was an IC man on a surface ship in the 90’s. Minesweeper. Because of the small size we worked hand in hand with the EM’s and one of my many jobs was switching from Ship to shore power and visa versa. We would compete to see who could synch both without blinking the lights on the ship. Fun times.
Not quite the same, but on my old turboprop aircraft in the RAF, each engine drove an alternator for power. No surprise there, but the frequency was directly related to rpm and that was sensed and used to keep the engines in sync with each other.
When I was in school for my EE degree (many decades ago), we had a lab where we were allowed/required to play with 5000V. It was also powered by electric motors and we actually set up generation stations which were synchronized with (using a light bulb) and then connected to, the grid. It was all very scary. Even though I was specializing in computer engineering, all EE students were required to take the junior level "power" classes which included this lab. It made me very nervous. I much preferred making circuits with breadboards and fine wires using 5V to using those thick cables to hook up 5000V circuits. 😀 Thanks for sharing this video, it brought back some very good memories.
The lab classes at my uni did most things at and around 400V phase to phase. Grid startup simulations were only talked about, not tried. But we did visit labs that worked at 400kV or similar. But the entire concept was taught and we all knew which 2 plants were the black start sites of the local grid. Since then, at least one has become a museum with the generator output disconnected, but they claim another nearby plant has taken over the duty.
For us it was called Energy Conversion. I called it Everything you never wanted to know about generators, transformers and motors. I was very proud to get an A in that class.
My father was Grid operator - on duty he faced system melt down - and he manually turned off the power to half of the Capital city. That kept the system running and saved the Black out. His supervisor gave him hard time for his decision. But they had simulator and for 6 months they tried everything to save the system, in the end - the only way out was my fathers approach. But nobody ever gave him medal or appreciation. May him rest in peace. Another non known hero that you will never know about.
I completely agree, system outages are hard on you and their is no appreciation for your efforts. Long Island lighting had a problem like that, (actually more than that part of NYC) they lost all three lines at Indian Point from lightning, that was the 1977 North East blackout.
A little black start anecdote: In the '90's I was working as a contractor plant electrician at the North Anna, Virginia nuclear power station during a refueling outage. I forget now if it was Unit 1 or 2. For some reason we were in the building housing the emergency diesel generators. Huge engines. Next to one of these engines hanging on the wall was was a hand crank similar to one you would start a Model T Ford car with. I asked the foreman what it was used for. He pointed to a single cylinder diesel engine mounted on the floor connected to a small air compressor. He explained that in the event of a total blackout and loss of service air, the crank was used to start that diesel powered compressor to charge a tank to power the air motors that start the main engine. I guess you could say that a nuclear power plant is crank start.
@@studuerson2548 As an airplane mechanic with a thing for inertial start systems (the technical term for crank starts) i too appreciate such simplistic redundancy! On our big jets, (i work at an airline) you dont start the engines with the battery. You use the batteries to start the Auxillary Power Unit (APU for short) Which is essentially a 3rd miniature engine on the plane. You then use the APU to start the main engines! This brilliance harkens back to WW2 bombers, which were the first to utilize that sort of rig. If you ever see one, ask the crew about the APP. (Auxillary Power Plant)
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my dad used to work for German railway, back in the eighties... they (still) use 24kV 16 2/3 Hz to run the trains, which is converted from main grid with motor/generator pairs, each weighting hundreds of tons. An Engineer in a hurry managed to engage both, before they where entirely synced... the buildings foundation had to be redone, since both machines did tilt just like yours did... being bolted to the foundation did nothing to keep them from doing that...
One minor discrepancy is that we don’t actually disconnect the transformers from the line when we do a black start. The iron cores of those transformers actually serve as a great way to smooth VAR transients, and we also want to keep station batteries energized because after about 8 hours we lose all remote visibility and operability. So where possible we leave the transformers energized and open the feeders.
You mentioned VARs - now my head hurts! It’s been 30 years since I synced a 5 MW diesel generator to the grid and had to adjust VARs as requested by the System Operator.
@@highvoltageswitcher6256 there are some visibility only stations that would probably last a bit longer. We train to assume we’ll have control for “at least” 8 hours, though the real number obviously differs by each station.
@@titleloanman Thanks for replying. We were discussing the subject of Black Start conditions today at work. We have two battery systems in our larger ground mounted substations. One is 110V and provides supplies to the Circuit Breakers, motorised isolators and protection relays. The other is 48V and supplies the SCADA equipment on-site. They have to last for at least 3 days without mains to the battery chargers. The likelihood of black start is higher now than it has ever been since our grid was first synchronised together over 80 years ago. Rota disconnections for 3 hours are even more likely this winter.
Back in the 80s I worked overseas at a compound that had it's own diesel generation plant. Being a tech, I got elected to run the plant for the 3 weeks a year that the normal plant manager was on vacation. The plant consisted of 2 big honking caterpillar powered generators of which one would run at a time. Every day I would fire up the standby unit and sync and switch them without dropping the load. As a tech, I understood the forces involved in syncing the generators every day, and it kind of creeped me out. The generator enclosure was very small requiring the operator to stand within a foot of the 2 roaring generators when he synched them up and threw the switch. By the end of my 3 week tour of duty each year I would finally be comfortable throwing that switch, but the next year it would start all over again.
I loved this. As an Operator at a large power plant next door to our smaller black start plant, I appreciate the level of detail. And we still use synchroscopes! Also important to note: we're paid a good sum of money, by the state I believe, just to have a black start plant (three small CTs) exist and be ready.
What? You guys get paid for your black start resources?! All we do is get a bunch of NERC requirements thrown at us for maintaining ours. haha We're getting totally ripped off! 😋
During the Great Blackout of 2003, The power companies asked customers to turn off heir air conditioners and leave them off for a few days after the power was restored. An upscale suburb near me had their power restored at about 10:00 am. By 11:00 am the power was back out again.
@R Hamlet It doesn't matter what class a person is. We all need water, food, and shelter at a habitable temperature. Especially the elderly. That is why electricity is so vital to our modern way of life.
@rhamlet5290 I once lived in an area where there power outages were not rare. Our neighborhood was cut more often than others, because there were buisness offices and some rich-ish people living there - thus they had the means to have power generators and not suffer from the outage. We very quickly negociated with our landlord to have a generator installed after a few months (not powerful enough for the oven, hob, or water heater, but it did mean that the heating was still on, as well as the water, light, and fridge. If we were careful, we could even use the microwave). But yes, when they had to cut electricity, they indeed tried to target those who could more easily ”afford” it.
These days there are battery farms, be interested to know if they are useful in a black start. I read they are good in smoothing out demand as it takes time for a coal powered power station to come online. I suppose any power station will take time.
As a fellow Texas Engineer, I really appreciate your videos! Municipal water supplies would be another good topic with lots of examples to pull from locally. I know we recently had an emergency repair on our deep water intake that was a fascinating example of how repairs are done on an active utility with minimal (or major) disruptions.
@@ValleysOfRain while everybody knew it was due to powerline failures and fossil fuel plants and pipeline not designed for the cold and not prepared for it. Had they built 4 wind turbines less the entire grid had collapsed completely
@@ValleysOfRain It wasn't just the engineers, it was anyone with enough intelligence to vet and understand the readily-available information they found on the web. But I bet it was big.
I'm a Ukrainian living in Kyiv and I'm finally glad to see an explanation on this topic. The power company has been driving us mad because they always turn on our neighbours' apartment building before our own haha. And since this system is still being repaired, a power balancing schedule is in place.
Ukraine's electrical engineers are probably the most experienced in black starts in the world, unfortunately. Hope last night's demonstration that their air bases aren't safe even 500km away! Слава Україні! Stay safe, and stay strong! ✊️
Our thoughts are with you in Ukraine. It's only down to 7 degrees here in the UK, but that still feels bloody cold - and I have a warm home to go back to. Last time I was in your part of the world at this time of year it was down to -15 some nights. That you cope with conditions like that with no power is nothing short of miraculous. Слава Україна!
Ex-Navy Nuke here. The nuclear plants I trained at still used synchroscopes when bringing turbine-generators onto the plant grid; cool to see them mentioned here. Great stuff!
Still the best way, but what he didn't mention was that the lager the generating unit the longer it takes to synchronize it to the rest due to the weight of the rotating elements. Then the units must be loaded to about 40% of full load to stabilize the frequency before the next unit is switched in.
@@henningventer2917 Commercial plants have auto sync but do have the ability to be manually synced. It's rarely used. 8 years navy nuc plus 23 years commercial nuc operation experience here.
Ex-Navy Navy Mechanical Operator here. Some the smartest people I ever met. And some of the weirdest people I ever met. One of the Most memorable times in my life.
Pump Storage schemes can act like a shock absorber to the system. The ability to consume as well as generate large quantities of power is seriously under rated
Thanks again for this great series Grady! As an electrical engineer in systems protection, I really enjoyed these videos. I'll never forget the report we read about a coal fired plant that was not properly synced to the grid (they bypassed all FOUR sync checks for some reason or another). The generator was thrown through the roof of the 14 story high building, and pieces were found up to 3 miles away. Amazingly, no one was killed in this accident. Synchronizing the grid is absolutely terrifying, but luckily we have relays that can automate most of the manual process at this point.
Side story, I previously ran an old 1949 GE genset, with an older 1930’s air operated breaker. Well the air breaker hung up, and when it finally decided to close we were approx 120 degrees out. Well luckily the building just shook and the dust was coming from the ceiling. Unfortunately that generator never sounded the same again, sounded like the wedging all loosened up, it made a fairly loud new growl. Granted this is after the sync relay sent the close, and they unfortunate fact that once a close was sent, an open signal wouldn’t do anything. This was a small 16.5 mw rated unit, we got 20 mw out of at 12 psi on the casing pressure with H2. Miss that old plant. Now I run 34 screens and mice, and gas turbines.
Boeing 727s had 3 separate three phase generators (one on each engine) The flight engineer had to synchronize each generator before connecting that generator to the bus. The engineer would adjust the frequency with a knob and watch two blinking lights. When the lights went out together the engineer knew it was OK to connect the generators. Called closing the bus tie. 😁
HUGE props to the linemen who spent this past Holiday Weekend working outside, in below-zero temperatures, restoring power to hundreds of thousands of people here in the Northeast!
I'm just a lowly software developer, but for a short time, I worked for Western Area Power Administration. While there I had the opportunity to go through their multi-day EPTC training program in Lakewood, CO about operating the grid. One of the things we had to do was start up a small grid in their training facility. The whole training was eye-opening. It was one of those "I didn't know what I didn't know" experiences akin to first learning assembly. If you (the reader of this comment) and I were in the same room I could describe the surprise I experienced when turning a small generator and FEELING the increase in difficulty when a small incandescent flashlight bulb was added to the circuit. Then the mind blowing 🤯 moment when everything clicked and I understood the reason why breakers exist throughout the grid. It's complex and beautiful.
That sort of reminds me of the flashlight bulb thing of how in some of the museums they would have you know the demonstration for how electricity is generated using hand crank generator and alone possibly a few additional loads like this and switches between the course for demonstrating about how it's harder to generate more power as the load is increased! I've seen some people just say Wow to something like this of course! I've been in many museums in my life also I had gone to the Grand Coulee Dam when I was just a kid! Another place and it was a museum sort of thing Educational Center you know close to the complex of a nuclear power station! They actually did have a small Solar Ray there which is kind of interesting seeing just even with the clouds passing over just how much it affects the output from the solar panels that was pretty cool! Also they had a demonstration there which was a model frame it might have either HO scale or N scale train I cannot remember which of the two. They had solar panels on the back of the display case and reflector problems toward the front angle at the panels to demonstrate the effect of providing solar power all these were connected to a dimmer on the front of the display! That one thing we are at a museum one time me my father they had a demonstration steam engine my father even was fascinated by this thing it was probably one of those intriguing things I'd say in a long time at Museum regarding production of power of any sort! This was a lot more recent than all the others that I mentioned at least in terms of going there. You actually had full operation of all the controls and this is one that was also equipped with condenser and everything else all the bills and whistles which I had not actually seen a demonstration on this scale of detail and Technical nature is this but definitely well designed and very informative and something that really gets things across like just how things work and the complexities involved with doing something like this and even for me was mind-blowing considering that I've actually worked with other equipment that's more complex than this but still something like that is less complex and all but yet more of a wow factor and more. It's not everyday you can feel more around with a piece of equipment like that it's just this is not just meant for older folks this was kids you know I mean they need more exhibits like this some places! Right now everything's just to high tech you could say! Sometimes if things are dumb down a bit instead of all these fancy things that you actually instead of just pushing a button or throwing a switch you have to open up an app on your phone to even turn something on! Don't even get me started about the clouds and if the internet doesn't work you can't turn your lights on sort of thing and I can't actually happen under the right conditions too! I knew someone that had smart switches everywhere F1 store or another well there are nothing out and Chaos ensued! The only way to get lines was the unplug all the smart switches and plug lamps directly to power problem is almost all their hardwired light fixtures were on Smart switches! This is not one of the ones that can run independently of the internet! All they really need to do is have some sort of manual override that basically just turns the switch on or off at the switch either as a convenience which could be used for and also as a backup to if there is a communication issue a hub issue an infrastructure issue what have you that would still work like a normal simple light switch if for other reasons you cannot turn on the light it would just be one or two inputs and a few extra lines of code on the switch itself problem solved. Oh and of course you could actually naming corporate a couple extra buttons for other features or even to maybe do another group of Lights Plus you can monitor the status of those buttons for on and off that could signal to something else that you had turned off manually which could also be a trigger for a different event or say anything else it'd be a bonus extra feature they can make a little cost a little bit more but people might buy it for this reason alone that it had the capability of being actually turned on and off as long as the switch itself was operational and everything else is gone Waco
I worked for WAPA also as a substationelectrician, We had real world training using Fort Peck hydro generator and a local substation to go through black start procedures! The EPTC was one of the many classes/ training I had while there! Best job to date!
This video coudn't possibly have been released at a better time. An excellent explanation of what is actually happening nearly every week down here in Ukraine.
Can you imagine how hard these guys/ gals are working to both fix the physical damage (caused by the madman Putler) and continuously doing one black start after another day in and day out. What a horrible situation to be put thru.
12:59 thats exactly what was happening during the Texas freeze. Our electricity was off and on within a second over a 7 minute period. Our power would return, then go out right at 7 minutes later (give or take 5 seconds). I started noticing our refrigerator, heat pump and other large appliances with a "time out" period after power is restored would start around 5-7 minutes. This must have been overloading our local substation causing it to trip and reset. This happened for around 12 hours before we started losing power for much longer periods.
That GE sync scope brought back some fond memories for me. 50 years ago, I was a load dispatcher in a big steel mill. There were 2, 30MW generators. When we synced a generator to the local utility grid, we controlled the steam admission valves to make the sync scope run in the clockwise direction at about the 2 times the speed of a clock second hand. We would excite the generator at a voltage, just a bit higher (14kV) than the grid voltage (13.8kV). When the sync scope was at about 5 till noon, we closed the breaker to the grid. The higher speed caused an immediate MW load on the generator of about 5% and the higher excitation voltage over the grid caused an immediate positive MVAR loading. This was preferred over closing the breaker on a static sync needle exactly at 12 noon as it avoided potential motoring of the turbine-generator and potential overheating from negative MVAR loading. If you did good, the turbine floor didn't flex when the breaker closed, if you messed up, the whole powerhouse sounded like a bomb when off. I was a kid at the time but I can still remember my old native Swedish boss yelling at me to "pick up those vats, and gimme some more wars".
Nice to see a man that still worked with steam. Im from the era of simple cycle steam in utility scale power plants Foster Wheeler and Combustion Engineering plants. There aint many of us left.
Great video that covers the challenges of starting a power grid from a blackout. I used to work at a power plant that included two coal units and four combustion turbines, two of which were black start capable. We did a test where we disconnected from the grid, started up the black start combustion turbines, then started up one of the coal units before connecting back to the grid. It took a lot of planning and coordination to do this, but it was a great exercise.
synchroscopes are still used today. I personaly use them on ships to synch a generator to the ship's net when more capacity is needed (for heavy consumers like a cargo plant, large cranes or thrusters). It is remarkable how similar a black start is to what we call a cold ship start.
Boy, seeing that synchroscope takes me back. We had those in the plant and in the control-room simulator. Simulator drove actual real synchroscopes with the needed voltages/frequencies. Having students learning to sync to the grid was a part of every operator's training.
Today, I had the opportunity to thank a veteran for his military service. I'm going to take this moment to thank you, and everyone in the power industry, for YOUR service. Everyone in the modern world relies on engineers and technical workers in a variety of fields we never even think of, but the work is critical, and the people who do it are to be appreciated. Thank you.
There's another TH-camr, Chris Boden, who has a series called 'Authorized Personnel Only' about the inner workings of a hydroelectric plant. He has one where he shows starting up and syncing the 400,000 watt power plant to the grid. The control panel has the same synchroscope. Fascinating set of videos.
See, this content beats all the conventional stuff all the time. Grady can just... _deliver_ complex ideas so simply and make you really appreciate what goes into keeping society running. As someone tweeted: "Society is only 36 hours away from total chaos" 😳 Thanks for making such great content - and book - Grady!
Thats a dramatic way to see it, but as accurate as another quote I've heard. "When you put your finger to the pulse of society, it beats once every 36 hours"
Question - why don’t plants simply disconnect from the grid rather than shut down. That way the plant can continue powering itself and would simplify grid recovery.
@@stephenblack8804 Not a plant/grid operator (I'm a computer/telecom engineer) but I'll try to take a stab at this. There are lots of really seasoned and actually-qualified veterans/professionals in this comments section so if one of them corrects me, take their word over mine. While I'm sure some plants do just what you're thinking, there are three big problems that I can think up: 1. Many plants are not able to operate for very long with no load: When the prime mover is going at full torque, it depends on the resistance of a generator to keep the RPMs down. To avoid damage to the plant, it's better to shut it down completely when it isn't powering anything. This is the whole "balancing act" of bringing groups of customers back online: we can't just bring all plants up, get everything stable, then say "OK, throw the switch" and connect the customers. We have to keep every plant within its minimum/maximum range, hence the back-and-forth "more plants, more loads, now more plants, now more loads" process... add to that the temporary nature of the "cold start pickup" for each group of loads and I imagine there's a lot more guesswork and intuition involved than pure technique. 2. OK, let's suppose we only have "ideal" plants that are perfectly happy operating anywhere from 0-100% capacity indefinitely. If we disconnect all of those from the grid and keep them idling, we aren't just isolating them from the loads, we're also isolating them from *each other.* This means that the phase/frequency and voltage of each one will fall out of sync over time. It's a lot easier to get one disconnected plant in sync with the rest of the grid than it is to sync many isolated plants with each other, or a whole group of plants with a some other whole group of plants, so in practice the sync-and-connect would end up being one or two at a time anyway. 3. In the event of an overloaded grid, I have to imagine plant operators would rather fight to the bitter end than disconnect. If an overloaded plant disconnects (which it may have to, for safety or to avoid damage), that excess load is just going to suddenly hit the neighboring plants and force them to disconnect too, and you get a cascading failure resulting in blackout anyway. Operators would rather fight the overload and try to ride it out, if at all possible, to avoid the blackout and subsequent "terrifying" black start.
@@stephenblack8804 Because you need a balance of supply and demand. In the case of a sudden black out a power plant is not capable to regulate that quickly. The system has inertia. Plus you can only power low systems so much. Transformators dont work that well under 10% of designed load.
@@stephenblack8804 Reaction time. Substation breakers are automatic and don't signal to every power plant "Hey, fellas, I'm about to cut off in 3, 2, 1..." and when a hazard such as a sudden power station disconnection or line disconnection happens, the grid has mere seconds to adjust before the breakers trip and everything is desynchronized and shut down. Additionally, islanding (a power plant separating itself from the grid and only powering itself) is a specific operation regime that takes time (several minutes) to get to. When the power grid is at high demand (as is the case when there's a risk for a blackout), all the power plants are going to be operating at high power. Before disconnecting from the grid and islanding, the plants need to run down their turbines until their generators are producing exactly as much power as the plant is consuming. A nuclear power plant might consume 35 MW in operation, but most of the time it'll be producing over 1000 MW-- running down the turbine from 1000 MW to 35 takes a long time, and, as previously mentioned, there are only mere seconds between a catastrophic fault and a total grid collapse. Thirdly, it's pointless. If you disconnect every power plant from the grid, all you've done is desynced all your generators from eachother and cut off all of your consumers from power-- you've just done a blackout, except way worse than most controlled blackouts because now each power plant has to re-synchronize with eachother from scratch. If you have the time to coordinate every power plant disconnecting from the grid, you should just do controlled rolling blackouts to limit load.
I remember that Nov '65 blackout. The odd part is how we had no idea how widespread it was until we powered up a 9-volt 'transistor' radio. Even then, reports did not fully appreciate the scale of the outage for many hours. Today, we can access phone apps that show a play-by-play of who's dropping off and who's coming back.
Coffee maker is totally the most important thing during black start. You don't want sleeping zombies doing the startup. Probably will break more stuff. 😂
Agree about coffee. Here in NH we occasionally have massive statewide blackouts due to winter ice storms. We have a backup generator now but prior to that I liked to joke that power in town was rarely cut off because there were no trees to fall on power lines so at least we were able to find hot coffee.
It is the maniacal desire for hot fresh non-instant coffee that will drive the workers doing the power restoration to efficiency. There is no life without coffee!
An excellent video, as usual for you Grady! I've been involved in this issue on a MUCH smaller scale as an Engineer in the US Navy in the early '70s. We had three, 750 kW steam turbine generators and one diesel 750 kW emergency generator on board. We would run drills wherein we would "lose the load" and all equipment would trip off line (generators, main engines, boilers, etc.) while at sea and practice bringinging everything back online using the diesel generator to accomplish this.
I used to work at the San Francisco Naval Shipyard and tested ship service generators. We weren't supposed to parallel with shore power but sometimes we had to do it when they were testing radars and other electronics. Fun!
@@KJ6EAD IIRC it was about an hour or so to get back up on line fully. But we were limited to 1/2 speed or less for the first hour or so of operation due to our HP turbine tending to develop a bowed rotor if not brought offline properly.
@@krallja I didn't get involved in that (Electrician's Mates did that, I was a Machinist's Mate, I ran turbines, pumps, etc.) But I do know that synchonization was part of the process for bringing up a generator, bring down a generator, and switching to shore power.
Britain has two pumped-storage facilities, one in Wales and one in Scotland that are designated Black Start stations. They are never run down to empty so they can provide Black Start power to the rest of the grid if necessary. As you said, it's never been tested for real because blacking out the nation's entire grid just to see if it would recover properly is not a feasible proposition.
We got two big dams for a water powered power plant in the alps.. and they are both able to be black started.. basically, you somehow need to manually enable water running down the mountain until it hits the turbine.
This is why energy is not easy... The grid and it's operators make it look easy and effortless. You just pointed out how complex the issues are, and I'm sure it's the tip of the iceberg. Thanks for showing and demonstrating the issues of Cold Load Pickup... that mechanical model really brought the issue to life about synchronization. I already knew about this, but watching that second motor jump when connected two out of phase generators drove the concept home. BTW: I'm enjoying your new book, fabulously illustrated and explanations are clear... I just love that kind of thing. Thanks!
Great video, when I was a kid one of my dads responsibilities was the standby generators of a small town in Papua New Guinea. This was a manually controlled pair of diesel CATs. When starting during a blackout you have to get 1 of the generators running from the battery, once you got it on you then have power to the shed and starting the second is easy. Then you have to sync the two using the lights, get it wrong and the CATs really growl as they fight each other. Never realised how these were wired till now, makes total sense. Once your ready to go then you bring on the town using two seperate circuits, each time you throw a circuit the lights dim, the CATs bog down under load before the governor kicks in. You wait 30 seconds for everything to settle then throw the second. Fun times.
Grady, as an old EE guy, I want to say that your series on the power grid has been excellent. And you could continue on the complexities for a lot longer than most folks are willing to accept. Yes, it is a house of cards. It tends towards instability which can only be prevented by constant monitoring and adjusting.
Every time I watch these videos, I learn something that is completely obvious in hindsight but I would never have thought about otherwise. Engineers are on a completely different level.
I think of engineering as “quantified paranoia.” You’re not done if your design only works under ideal conditions. You’re getting close to done if you can confidently answer questions like: - how would this break? - how much can it handle until it breaks? - how likely is it to break? - how bad is it when it breaks? - how can we avoid the worst consequences if it breaks? And yeah, a lot of best practices are informed by past people breaking stuff and learning the hard way.
Interesting. I live in Florida and have experienced storms ranging from "merely" tropical to full blown CAT-2 hurricanes. I've lived in the same house all these decades and have wondered why it sometimes takes just as much time (sometimes even more) to get back power from a lesser storm. This video gave me a greater appreciation of what goes into restoring a grid beyond simple physical damage to lines, transformers and substations.
Wait till you go thru a Cat 5. Try 5 weeks without commercial power. Local nuke plants cannot run without the grid being up. Even when there were oil fired units right next door. Power went out from the plants to a substation and then back to the plant. Substation going down or the grid going down resulted in the reactors scramming. So a minor storm that took out a minor part of the grid could result in power being out for days until the HV lines were back up.
@@gravelydon7072 I can believe that. Just looking at what happened to those poor souls in the Southwest of my state... Brrr, those drone footages are scary as hell. I'm pretty sure it will take them weeks just to get power up throughout that area.
@@Vulpine407 They will in most areas have an easier time than down here. Here if you dig down 6" you are in rock. When Andrew came thru, it snapped off most poles at ground level. That included brand new concrete poles that were 4' in diameter and so new that the power had never been turned on to them yet. On our street is one lone survivor of Andrew. The pole in front of our house was put in in 1978 when our house was built. They had to top it to install a new insulator but our transformer was put back in use for almost another 5 years after that. It has a lean to the West but it has survived a Cat 5, several Cat 1,, Cat 2, and Cat 3 Hurricanes. After Andrew, my employers flew over the areas hit with the District chopper. I have the unedited videos from that with the time stamp on it. Now days drones do the same work. And yes, I can feel for those on our West coast having been thru one of the worst in US history.
As a Mississippian I am surprised you’ve lived in Florida for decades and still haven’t been through a 4 or 5. I still have nightmares about Katrina when I see hurricanes on the tracker heading our way.
@@huntercarter5426 2005 was a bad year for us down here too. While we didn't have a Cat 5, we did have 3 of them one right after another. Katrina, Rita, and Wilma all touched us with Katrina a Cat 1 at the time , Rita was a Cat 2, and I forget what Wilma was when near here. With Rita we lost power for a week as the crews had to repair some of the three phase lines before they could get us powered back up. Once the crew arrived, it took them most of the day to find where the fault was. It was a cracked insulator that they only found after blowing a number of fuses trying to locate it. It was a 3 mile long power line. We now are on a segment that is only 1/2 mile long. Much easier to find the fault but bumps us down as far as priority.
Dang, this is very well-researched. As a former control room operator in a black-start facility, and recently a control room operator in system/transmission operations (our annual black start restoration plan training starts tomorrow!), everything you mentioned jives with what I know about black starts. Usually I pick up on little Gell-Mann bits, but all your electric grid videos I watched today were flawless. Great job!
This reminds me very much of disaster recovery plans in other industries. "When the worst happens, once you stabilize or correct the situation, what steps must be taken in order to restore operations? What are the priority areas that need to be restored first and how do we protect them as we restart services?" I've done things like that on large IP networks. I was once in a situation where several devices went offline in an unplanned outage. We couldn't simply bring them all back up because the system would never converge with all the activity from nearby devices. We had to bring things back online literally one at a time from the center out to the edge and keep things from talking until the system was stable enough to accept the communication. Took hours.
Even though we were at or at least very much near maximum breaker capacity at the local television station in my city, we had this problem with the technical room that held the servers. After a blackout (which are rare in The Netherlands, but can be very much based on where you live, the older neighbourhoods in a city tend to be a bit more prone to them) we had to start each server independently because switching them all on with all of their control circuits doing their boot-checks and all the fans at maximum speed and disks spinning up would immediately sink so much current through the breaker we'd trip it :P . (We had a couple of UPS'es that had reached their end of life and as a result kept on charging basically forever, and were not regularly tested, so upon a small disruption that would have any other electrical installation survive without disruption, this would usually trip one of our breakers because a UPS would kick in, suffer a failure quickly due to empty batteries, and upon the power dipping situation being gone trying to switch back pushing the breaker in our building over the top).
@@Dutch3DMaster Yep! Been there too. The Inrush current can be substantial. Had PDUs that had relays in the for cycling outlets remotely. We deployed some large servers for data storage. The inrush current was enough to literally weld the relays closed. We had to replace dozens of PDUs with upgraded units.
I enjoy your videos. When I was a power plant operator, we synchronized the oncoming generator with the synchroscope moving "slowly in the fast direction" and at a few moments before straight up. This combination (slow in the fast direction and slightly before straight up) causes the oncoming generator to pick up real voltage (as opposed to VARs) and positive load immediately upon closure, and minimizes the risk of a reverse current trip.
I am really enjoying the last couple videos. I write the blackstart, restoration, and emergency plans for the grid in my area. it is nice to see someone explain major outages so well. Many people have no idea of the grid's complexity.
Another great video. I love the effort you put into these garage demos. Too bad you had to sacrifice two automotive alternators but it visually got the point across.
@@PracticalEngineeringChannel connect the alternators to a 3 phase step up transformers and make a working useful generator from it to power your house in case of blackouts :)
As a Ukrainian I find this video especially interesting as our engineers are fighting blackouts 24/7 for the last 3 month trying to keep the power grid running while the transformers and power plants are being knocked out by Russian rockets and drones. I owe to them. This people are heroes.
Worked in power plants all my working life and experienced alot of hair raising situations and failures, but never rockets and drones! Can't wait for Putin to get a rocket up the a**....
That’s why we need to do away with this grid. Power supply units need to work with all voltages. Switch mode does this. Powerplants like solar or wind need to just amplify everything in the grid using their switch mode transformer. At least up to 24V until they are sure that no one works on the cable.
Grady, Ship power plants are smaller versions of the main power grid. For the cold start of a ship plant, you need a source of power. If the ship is docked, say at a shipyard, you can use shore power. If the ship is at sea, you rely on the emergency generator, which generally rely on batteries to start. I know of a case where a part was flown in to a dead ship, along with a supervising engineer, from California to the Persian Gulf. After changing the suspect part the emergency generator wouldn't start. The batteries were dead. A recommendation was made to install a second set of batteries. But, if they are dead as well, how do you start the generator? Ultimately, we installed hydraulic starters as backups to the batteries. If all else fails you can use muscle power to recharge the hydraulic pressure with a hand pump. On the last new build project I worked on besides the emergency generator with battery and hydraulic start, we installed a hand cranked single cylinder diesel generator. This engine was sized with enough power to start the ship service diesel generator. I should also mention, these hand cranked engines were installed on tankers that have two fully redundant 11 MW engine rooms. Each of the two engine rooms meets all regulatory requirements for a single engine room. Twin-screw, twin-rudder, twin control rooms, separated by a watertight bulkhead. Bob
I would be really interested in getting a breakdown of what happened in North Carolina for the deliberate Act of terrorism and how they manage restarting the grid after repairs are made. This is actually a very on point video, as this very situation is happening right now.
Are they actually calling it terrorism, or is that a term you decided to use just now? I'm not trying to downplay the impact of a serious power outage but it seems like the bar for terrorism has lowered quite a bit over the past 20 years.
The infrastructure damaged in Moore County are "just" substations. Substations don't generate any electricity; they just help distribute it, and the amount of consumers isolated from the grid due to this damage isn't terribly significant to the nearby power plants. The inrush loads when the substations are repaired and reactivated is probably the only thing somewhat close to black start concerns.
I have a background in electronics engineering and, honestly, this video was an absolute eye opener for me! The startup demands make perfect sense but I hadn't considered all of the ramifications of starting up from dark. Thank you for making this!
Nice job Grady, I enjoy all your videos especially this series as I've been a substation guy for over 20 years. We still practice manual synchronization a couple times a year, just in case we can't rely on the relaying. Also, I wanted to mention not only do you have to synchronize the power Islands, you combine them to build enough load to provide frequency stability for the grid and the larger power plants. A large nuke for example, needs a certain amount of load to have a stable 60 hertz frequency. So that's why they build relatively large islands before bringing large plants online.
Don't all nuclear power plants have to be able to blackstart? They need emergency power anyways, because the cooling pumps have to be kept spinning at all times.
@@alanwesterfield4254 Put simply, the thing spins to make power, but you need power to start it spinning. For some power stations (nuclear in this case) they also need something for the spinning thing to actually send power to, or it'll spin too fast. (or too fast/too slow/too fast-too /slow which is also real bad) So you have to get it enough power from somewhere else to start, and also connect it to enough stuff that it spins at the right speed, but not too much or it'll stop spinning and you have to start over (assuming that stopping it spinning didn't break something)
Thanks for showing the syncroscope! I ran nuke plants in the Navy and we used those to sync power freq and phase to bring power distribution segments online. The usual rule was to get the scope turning clockwise at a slow rate, then operate the breaker as the needle was approaching 10:30 o'clock, giving the mechanism a little time to operate and close at 12 o'clock (ideally). During a training event, a new operator closed the breaker much too early - around 8 o'clock - and the breaker "rapidly disassembled" itself. That shut us down for a few days, but it was better that the breaker died than a steam powered turbine generator :)
Working in the power plant training field, this information is very accurate. I have run simulators that start from a black start, and the procedure is much different than a normal start. One plant was designed independently of the grid because its power use used for industrial use. It had five black start diesel generators that started a 5MW natural gas turbine used to bring up the larger natural gas 75MW turbines. The lube oil and cooling pumps are major power draw devices beyond the computer control systems to start these plants. To increase efficiency, heat recovery created steam to run additional steam turbines.
I remember it well. Not to long after the Nov 9, 1965 blackout, Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact magazine dot a fact article on the restarting of the grid. They described the employees of a generating plant somewhere in New England (memory fails) hooking up their vehicles in order to provide in-plant power to start up the the plant that restarted the grid. I was working as a lab technician in Ottawa, Ontario, but lived just across the river in Quebec. I can’t remember whether we lost power at home too. . . but in our area the place put lasted only a few hours.
I really think you should add one more video to this series: Distributed grids. It'd be a great way to connect traditional power generation with the other videos you've done on renewable energy and residential solar.
Grady, you are literally filling in all the spots in my brain that my high school teachers failed to do. i actually think school is set up in an odd way. i in fact had no desire to focus on learning and using information until i was well into my late twenties. most young kids don’t desire to learn i think. i imagine it might be a cool experiment to put people in an educational program after they’ve aged a bit and experienced what life is
@@OAFNation314 when i was a young teen, i had very little desire to learn and therefore be educated on things like science, history, mathematics, mechanics, economics and so on. but after growing into my early 30s, i oddly find myself much more interested in the things going on in and around the planet. I think that educational leaders may have lost sight of what’s most important, but that’s not surprising considering how corrupt of a time we live in. peace to you friend
@@jackNimoy what could they have done differently when you were younger? was the material just not relevant or challenging? or was it you who changed and matured and started to appreciate learning these things, but younger you just wasn't ready for it?
Humans are curious by nature. We live to learn about our surroundings, ever since we are babies. The reason you don’t like to learn in SCHOOL is because you are expected to be assessed on all types of subjects, even the ones that you won’t pursue in the future. They feed you with all sorts of information which is near impossible to retain, unless you want to spend every day of your teenage years studying all of it. Besides that, it is also rare for a teacher to actually make a subject interesting. I’m in uni right now and nothing has changed. There will be lecturers that give us labs, projects, rewards, etc… and then there will be lecturers who will read off a powerpoint and call it a day.
I had long wondered about the black start after the 1965 black grid event. Writers always focus on the initiating event and the chain of failures. My introduction to the grid (and only professional involvement) was briefly consulting in the late ‘80s on an AI system at Toshiba for black start of the grid in Kyushu. I didn’t learn a lot (everything was in Japanese and my involvement was brief and focused on performance), but it sparked my interest ever since. Before COVID hit, I was working on an educational simulation to show various grid concepts, black start being one. It’s great to see you cover this; you have a talent for explaining concepts I can only aspire to!
I have been a PM for transmission projects for the last year. I have been recommending your videos to our younger/junior PM's with out much experience in the energy industry. The 500kV underground line fascinated our office. Also I was in 3rd grade when the 2003 black out started. Now at 28, I'm now working on the program that started in response to the black out and there is no end in sight to it.
I can confirm that you did an amazing job of keeping all the important details yet not getting too much in the details that it would be hard to grasp for anyone not in the loop.
I worked at a facility which was mission-critical. We'd proactively switch to generator before thunderstorms. There were usually phase differences between the generator plant and grid, so the building would noticeably shake when the transfer occurred. Fortunately there were 10, 5, 1 minute warnings with a 10 second countdown over the PA system.
@@williamhuang8309 nope, the genset was a standby model, meant to run when the utility failed. Except we would switch over whenever there were thunderstorms in the area. The transfer switch kicked over when it was warmed up and ready, no method to sync it up
As a retired electro-mechanical technician, out of the industry for many years now, and having acquired a somewhat limited education prior to my entering the workforce, relying on my ability to learn as I experienced various situations, I occasionally found myself confronted with situations beyond my capabilities in knowledge and reasoning. Of course, I tried to fake it until I made it, usually coming out okay in the end. There were occasions, though, where I simply had to say, "I don't know." Those were terrible words for me to have to say to a customer. The advent of such informative videos such as this one, as well as others, are wonderful to see. When I was actively working in the industry, I knew that there was much of which I was ignorant, yet how does one know the depths of their own ignorance? These fabulous, easily understood videos now give me insight to that which I was previously unaware. Good on ya for presenting these concepts in an easily understood manner.
Lack of power is what caused the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant failure. The backup generators became flooded by the tsunami, killing the power. We all know what happened next. GREAT VIDEO! I wish I was an engineer!
Really good timing on this video! I live in central North Carolina and some people just destroyed a power substation around me in Moore County. Around 40k people are without power including businesses, gas stations, and hospitals. Some have generators. They’re working on rebuilding and restoring power but it may take around a week to do so.
My father told me about the blackout incident of 2003, he was one of the many people to incorporate those new safety protocols to keep it from happening again
FP&L had one in 2008 that resulted in power loss for about 3 million people. A short circuit with the protective breakers cut out caused 38 Substations, 26 HV grid lines , and power plants in 4 counties to go down. Major loss was the local nuke plants which take care of most of the load. No grid, no nukes as they automatically will drop the rods to shutdown.
I think maybe a Jenga tower is a better analogy for the grid. It's normally quite stable, but several compounding mistakes and overextensions can cause it to topple, and then it has to be reassembled from the ground up
I'm 40+, architect with an engineering background. I just want to say thank you for all the great videos. They fill the gap the Discovery channel left when they went reality. I really enjoy learning about complex infrastructure and all the inner workings.
Very well done. I have sold protective relaying to the utility and industrial markets for 30 years and you explained the system operations well. Black start is one of those occurrences you have to train for but never want to experience. Always enjoy your videos
I used to live near a black start power station called Littlebrook D, just on the outskirts of London. It used three pairs of Rolls Royce Olympus gas turbines (derived from those used in the Concorde airliner) to start up its conventional oil fired power generator which could then start other stations. It was used in anger following an outage after a big storm in 1987, and it would also start up automatically to help maintain the 50Hz frequency of the grid during periods of high demand, due to its short 5 minute startup time.
There's a similar array of four pairs of Rolls Royce Avon engines at Didcot to provide 100MW of fast response time generation and strategic backup, I think it's a similar setup with it being capable of starting up the much larger gas turbine array that now inhabit the site
Grid Operator here. I couldn't explain this to the public better it I tried! We do an annual two day training conference with neighbouring utilities, generators, and regulating operators where the main topic is black start and restoration. We also do an additional in house training day 6 months after the training conference. A Black start is no laughing matter.
I’ve been an electrician for 40 years. I love your stuff. Very well explained. People don’t understand and you do a wonderful job explaining it vey intelligent young man and impressive in your explanations.
I am an electrical engineering student and had a lab experiment on synchronisation. Your demonstration has helped me to understand why synchronisation is so important. Thank you
I saw some good videos online showing synchronous motors and how they lag as the load builds until they pull out of synchronization. That would certainly cause some wobbles with a big motor. Also lots of stuff on using one for power factor correction. Im a truck driver not a student but I can understand the principles if not the details from this.I live in South Australia where we have some days using 100% renewable only and exporting to other states thanks to wind/solar farms and high penetration of rooftop PV along with grid scale batteries. The problem is grid stability due to such low "inertia/momentum" because there is not really any spinning generators during high output days and it is easy for harmonics to upset the system. They have installed 4 rotary Condensers which are solely to add a flywheel effect to pull up the grid or keep it down if it surges. You will probably be interested so this is an article on it www.energymagazine.com.au/sa-synchronous-condensers-installed/
When engineering generator systems, this is why we use protective relays that have an ANSI 25 synchronization check function. It prevents a breaker from closing allowing a generator and a live bus to be connected out of sync. If this happens out of sync, the mechanical synchronization is very bad. 180 degrees out of sync, and it's a kaboom situation.
Yeah! The topic I requested! Working briefly at IESO (Ontario grid operator) as a student, I got to hear stories from operators about the great blackout, like how they had to wheel a photocopier into the control room and other weird stuff. Now I design black start capabilities for microgrids at hospitals and industrial facilities that have on-site cogeneration.
I would LOVE to see you do individual books on each piece of our infrastructure. I have your current book, read it cover to cover and loved it - currently it's with my nieces. With your education style, I would pick up anything else you wrote. Great work, thanks for all the effort!
I distinctly remember how frequently power surges and blackouts were prior to the great power outage. What's most intriguing is you could see how they designed the 'grid' system afterwards, so only very localised spots like a single apartment would go down instead of whole neighbourhoods.
What a brilliant simplified explanation how and why a Blackstart event is such a major issue and can take days to a week (or more) to get everything back up and running. Well done. I have just retired from a major Electricity Distributor in Australia and "Blackstart" used to come up at least once every 6 months to make sure that everybody was "Ready" in case of a real live event. Just brilliant, your video should be a "must watch" directive at my ex-employer, as the majority, including electrical qualified personnel do NOT understand how generator/grid synchronization works. This included me until I saw your video, despite that I am qualified in the electrical field.
@@Legendendear Not only do the attackers deserve to be dehumanized, but their comment isn't dehumanizing at all. Ukrainians are allowed to call Russians funny names, it's probably one of the only ways to stay sane during a time like this.
@@TexanMiror2 Dehumanizing is ALWAYS a problem. Guess how NS Germany began with the propaganda against Jews. And no, I'm not saying that Ukraine is heading the same way, I just want to point out where it *CAN* end
@@АбракадабраКобра259 That wont happen, even if it did happen. Cause my small city is not important enough. They would rush past, towards NATOd centres and take control of em. But fine. If you promise me, that you treat the Russians with respect who have no control over the situation. The last we need right now are actions which Russia could use as justification for their atrocities. If you can promise me that, we have a deal.
I was only slightly triggered by that out of round pulley, so I won't cry too loudly. 😅 I remember the 1965 incident. I was in Jr HS and some social event I was looking forward to got cancelled. Teen aged perspective, missing seeing my friends was the most important thing about that. As usual, a great video. Love the effort you put into these and your clear explanations.
I have a really interesting suggestion for an entry into the blackout series. Luma energy here in Puerto Rico and the dozens of blackouts within the first year of its operation. The problem goes way back and reached a tipping point in 2017. This is a good learning point and I feel everyone interested in the topic should know about it.
FYI - Retired nuclear electrician, engineer and power plant operator here. Your discussion of the syncroscope as almost correct. You did NOT want to scope stopped at the 12 o'clock position when closing a breaker to tie two powerplants or grids together but actually moving slow in the fast direction and timed to close at the 12 o'clock. This establishes one plant or grid as slightly faster than the other and causes it to immediately pick up some small amount of loading. This is important to prevent some other change on the grid loads from occurring that might cause your newly connected but zero load source from going into a reverse power condition. This could damage the equipment or more likely cause a protective relay to operate preventing damage and the transient causing further grid disruption. Like I said its a minor difference but can actually cause entire islands to collapse again during a black start condition.
The timing of these videos was incredibly ideal considering current events. I never would have known what kind of humanitarian crisis a blackout can be, but it's also incredibly helpful to know that there are at least measures in place to get the power back on. Thanks for this timely information about how vulnerable things can be and hopefully people can use this to prepare themselves for a similar incident should it happen in the future.
Texas wasn't a blackout though it was a power outage, they simply shed load before collapsing. It might not make a difference to the clients but it is a world of difference at the supply side of things. They simply didn't have the power available to rebuild the grid before the cold front passed. >hopefully people can use this to prepare themselves for a similar incident should it happen in the future. Not happening without more production capacity or exchange capacity with neighboring grids.
I have 15 years in power generation and had 6 more in Navy Nuclear. I really appreciate the manner in which you teach. Not so specific as to lose the audience and with enough detail to show the complexities. For the record, we still use the model sybchroscope you showed, but there are also electronics that prevent paralleling out of phase.
I’ve worked closely with WAPA in the USVI. They take each island grid down every time there is a tropical storm or hurricane. And so they must have a blackstart recovery each time, which is difficult bit on a smaller scale than any off the three grids in the US/Canada (Eastern Interconnect, Western Interconnect, ERCOT). Large grid or small grid, getting them up and synchronized is a challenge.
I get generator synchronization but grid synchronization begs many questions: What is used for the grid frequency reference? How is the generator frequency in each island adjusted? Would only 1 transmission tie line be used for the initial sync?.
@@JohnDoe-od1yj From my EE education, one line would provide initial sync, then each additional line might need phase adjustment before establishing a redundant connection that turns the lines into an actual grid. Fortunately, most black starts happen on a grid where all the lines were correctly adjusted just a few hours earlier, so they tend to be in sync already and just need power to run. Situation is much worse when recovering from major grid damage as the adjustments will have to be redone during the process, as the grid is essentially being rebuilt. Someone will have to watch synchronization meters at each interconnect before closing the big switches. Oh, and good luck phoning the control room from the field as telecoms have been skimping out on their back up systems for about 2 decades now. I hope the grid operators have backup power for the old control fiber optic networks to function during black starts.
I really appreciate this series. Experienced my second blackout recently after a plane hit some powerlines in Montgomery County MD and its kinda reassuring knowing all that has to happen to get the power back online.
So many different concepts I've been familiar with all come together in a major power grid. Large multi engine jetliners have an APU (Auxiliary Power Unit) that start via a battery and provide enough power to start the main engines, which is similar to the black start generators. When you turn the key in a car to start the engine, while the starter is cranking power is cut to the radio and other accessories to push power to the starter, similar to isolating the main grid from the transmission lines while getting power stations back online. Synching generators to provide proper phase alignment is like when we started 2 generators on the ship while I was in the Navy, the electricians had to get both gensets' phases synched up to put them in parallel so they both shared the load. So many "moving parts" to deal with!!
As an Alumna of Bellingham Tech, you just made me smile. Just watched your blackout vid, and followed it with this black start vid. Good stuff. Our fancy world is great, but yeah, it's so fragile, when you think thru how many little things ALL have to work to keep it running. :/
I did a double take when Grady mentioned BTC. I never would’ve thought local endeavors would cross paths with this channel. It shouldn’t be surprising though, you folk at BTC are class A 💫 What did you study at BTC? Electrical engineering I’d wager.
Well, I knew running/starting/recovering a grid was complex, but I had no idea it was THAT complex! Thanks, Grady, another excellent video. In fact I could quite happily have watched a much longer one on the same subject - a fascinating topic. But spare a thought for the poor engineers in Ukraine - trying to keep their grid running while they've got a lunatic constantly hitting vital parts of it with missiles. They may not be fighting on the front line, but those people are still heroes.
Great video! You explain bringing up the grid and synchronizing generators very well. After a Public Safety Power Shutdown here in California it takes some time for the Pacific Gas & Electric Company to bring power back to customers. Your video tells why this is.
I went to college in the mid 90s. We had a class called Electrical Energy Conversion, and the associated lab. The lab had some giant machines in it that were just bulky versions of the model you made. One "genius" decided it would be fun to try and bring both generators online almost completely out of phase. the resulting electrical arc spanned the classroom. Sadly mine was the last class ever for that course, as they shut it down the next year due to "low demand", since it was considered an electic.
Really good explanation regarding blackouts and black start. I'm now retired, but for years I was a system operator and then trainer for system operations. My principle role was helping develop and train current operators, the implementation of our System Restoration Plan for my company and province. One thing not mentioned here that can be a challenge is when two islands are finally brought to where there is only one breaker separating them, there is potential for a 2 per unit (2PU) voltage (or 180 deg out of phase) to be imposed across the contacts of the open breaker. In the past it was no big deal because the usual synchronizing breaker was an air blast with up to 4 sets of contacts to share the electric stress. Today, however, with the "improvement" to SF6 insulated breakers, there are generally only one set of contacts, and they are not rated to handle 2PU. This could result in catastrophic failure of the sync breaker, further complicating restoration. We did special training to try nd prevent this, but still a great challenge, none the less.
I work for our local natural gas utility, and winter blackouts also are cause for concern for us, like the air conditioning in the summer, if service is restored to a bunch of now cold homes it can cause demand surge on our pipelines and distribution networks. We have to coordinate with the electrical utilities during these events to make sure everything is executed in a manner that doesn't cause problems across multiple systems. I'd love to see you cover more about natural gas and pipeline infrastructure. There's a ton of fascinating things to learn that most don't realize. This is one of my favorite channels. Thanks!
In many older hydro power plants, the wicket gates could be opened at least once using large compressed air tanks to return from a total plant trip or black start. This was the case before battery banks and stand by generators and with older governors.
Going back to mechanical/analog days seems to be a reoccurring theme in modern times. It's almost like changing literally everything within a century can have unexpected technical difficulties.
I saw this comment and it made me smile, indeed the black start capable exiters in the original Rankine power station at Niagara falls were actually made up of tiny DC generators with permanent magnets with their own tiny pennstocks. All someone had to do was open a valve manually and they have the juice needed for exciting the main units. This was an old 25hz plant.
I Love most Practical Engineering videos but this is one of my favorites I have seen from Grady! Fascinating and one of the best explanations I have ever seen of the black start! What a great end to an amazing series.
In South Africa we have experienced 130+ days without power in 2022. Rolling blackouts , 2-4hrs at a time, 8-14hrs per day without electricity . 2023 is going to be much worse . Corruption and sabotage is the main cause .
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Been waiting for this video. Thanks!
You had at least five ads on this video.
Couldn't they create a 'black-start' grid (with a number of highly-calibrated consumers of electricity) so they could bring the power online quickly, then flick a switch to change the power-plants from energising grid B (the emergency grid) to energising grid A (the commercial grid) to make this smoother?
Disclaimer: I'm not an electrical student. My apologies in advance if this is an utterly ridiculous idea.
@@iivin4233 No ads for me apart from the sponsor. Perhaps you should try getting an adblocker?
Thank you so much for that awesome model! i hope to build my own generator soon that was a huge help. thanks again for such awesome content, i cannot understate how much i appreciate it!!!!!
As a previous power plant engineer, I deeply appreciate you including coffee makers when you listed essential equipment for the power plant to run.
Lol Amen to that!
I operated an small data center. The coffee maker was plugged in the backup generator circuit, because its essential equipment for the operation of the data center.
If you don't have a coffee maker, better pray that there's at least a stove.
The coffee maker takes precedence over emergency lightning in any serious power plant.
@@DinnerForkTongueheresy
This reminds me so much of running out of power in Factorio. Your miners require energy to dig up the coal that's required to generate energy, and when you restore power there's often a spike in demand as all of the belts and other buffers have emptied out so all the machines are working at 100% capacity. It's amazing how the game can approximate real-world problems like this.
i definitely havent been the only one thinking that - nice to see
OK you convinced me. I guess I'll spent the next few weeks playing Factorio again
Satisfactory has similar issues when performing a black start. I have had to separate the power grids so I can bring the plants back online without causing a load inrush.
@@ben_burnes Dammit I had real world stuff to do this week.
Yeah. Restarts in Factorio are brutal
I'm a submarine nuclear electrician's mate in the US Navy and watching you explain voltage regulation and generator synchronization has put a huge smile on my face. My ship had basically an identical synchroscope to the one you showed and matching voltages/frequencies is an important part of operating our electric plants.
I was an IC man on a surface ship in the 90’s. Minesweeper. Because of the small size we worked hand in hand with the EM’s and one of my many jobs was switching from Ship to shore power and visa versa. We would compete to see who could synch both without blinking the lights on the ship. Fun times.
i used to work on a tug with the same set up too.
Yeah man slow in the fast direction for the win.
I work on a conventional power plant unit and we use the same exact synchroscope too 👍
Not quite the same, but on my old turboprop aircraft in the RAF, each engine drove an alternator for power. No surprise there, but the frequency was directly related to rpm and that was sensed and used to keep the engines in sync with each other.
When I was in school for my EE degree (many decades ago), we had a lab where we were allowed/required to play with 5000V. It was also powered by electric motors and we actually set up generation stations which were synchronized with (using a light bulb) and then connected to, the grid. It was all very scary. Even though I was specializing in computer engineering, all EE students were required to take the junior level "power" classes which included this lab. It made me very nervous. I much preferred making circuits with breadboards and fine wires using 5V to using those thick cables to hook up 5000V circuits. 😀 Thanks for sharing this video, it brought back some very good memories.
The lab classes at my uni did most things at and around 400V phase to phase. Grid startup simulations were only talked about, not tried. But we did visit labs that worked at 400kV or similar. But the entire concept was taught and we all knew which 2 plants were the black start sites of the local grid. Since then, at least one has become a museum with the generator output disconnected, but they claim another nearby plant has taken over the duty.
EE331 (motors and generators) and EE307 (electronagnetics) at IIT (Illinois Institute of Technology in the 1980s...
For us it was called Energy Conversion. I called it Everything you never wanted to know about generators, transformers and motors. I was very proud to get an A in that class.
Well done, man. That's awesome. @@davidrush4908
you got a degree in Empire Earth??? pretty 1337
My father was Grid operator - on duty he faced system melt down - and he manually turned off the power to half of the Capital city. That kept the system running and saved the Black out. His supervisor gave him hard time for his decision. But they had simulator and for 6 months they tried everything to save the system, in the end - the only way out was my fathers approach. But nobody ever gave him medal or appreciation. May him rest in peace. Another non known hero that you will never know about.
I completely agree, system outages are hard on you and their is no appreciation for your efforts. Long Island lighting had a problem like that, (actually more than that part of NYC) they lost all three lines at Indian Point from lightning, that was the 1977 North East blackout.
What capitol City
I am a grid/system operator. We have a saying that the absence of scorn is considered praise.
@@coreybabcock2023 Reykjavik - Iceland
@@roberth7691 as an engineer who used to work in IT operations I feel that.
A little black start anecdote: In the '90's I was working as a contractor plant electrician at the North Anna, Virginia nuclear power station during a refueling outage. I forget now if it was Unit 1 or 2. For some reason we were in the building housing the emergency diesel generators. Huge engines. Next to one of these engines hanging on the wall was was a hand crank similar to one you would start a Model T Ford car with. I asked the foreman what it was used for. He pointed to a single cylinder diesel engine mounted on the floor connected to a small air compressor. He explained that in the event of a total blackout and loss of service air, the crank was used to start that diesel powered compressor to charge a tank to power the air motors that start the main engine.
I guess you could say that a nuclear power plant is crank start.
Ha that's awesome. Ty
thats so funny
It's pretty hilarious, but there's certainly nothing more reliable that good ol' human power 😂😅
As an old guy, I appreciate the fact that sometimes it takes a crank to set everything right.
@@studuerson2548 As an airplane mechanic with a thing for inertial start systems (the technical term for crank starts) i too appreciate such simplistic redundancy!
On our big jets, (i work at an airline) you dont start the engines with the battery. You use the batteries to start the Auxillary Power Unit (APU for short)
Which is essentially a 3rd miniature engine on the plane.
You then use the APU to start the main engines!
This brilliance harkens back to WW2 bombers, which were the first to utilize that sort of rig.
If you ever see one, ask the crew about the APP. (Auxillary Power Plant)
my dad used to work for German railway, back in the eighties... they (still) use 24kV 16 2/3 Hz to run the trains, which is converted from main grid with motor/generator pairs, each weighting hundreds of tons. An Engineer in a hurry managed to engage both, before they where entirely synced... the buildings foundation had to be redone, since both machines did tilt just like yours did... being bolted to the foundation did nothing to keep them from doing that...
I bet that made an awesome sound.
That wasn't very German of that engineer
Shame we couldn’t see it on hd cctv!!
Small correction, it's actually 15 kV :)
@@Flumphinator I bet it made an expensive sound, lol
One minor discrepancy is that we don’t actually disconnect the transformers from the line when we do a black start. The iron cores of those transformers actually serve as a great way to smooth VAR transients, and we also want to keep station batteries energized because after about 8 hours we lose all remote visibility and operability. So where possible we leave the transformers energized and open the feeders.
You mentioned VARs - now my head hurts!
It’s been 30 years since I synced a 5 MW diesel generator to the grid and had to adjust VARs as requested by the System Operator.
Do you lose all SCADA from remote substations in just 8 hours? Would expect an order of magnitude longer than that.
@@highvoltageswitcher6256 there are some visibility only stations that would probably last a bit longer. We train to assume we’ll have control for “at least” 8 hours, though the real number obviously differs by each station.
@@titleloanman Thanks for replying. We were discussing the subject of Black Start conditions today at work. We have two battery systems in our larger ground mounted substations. One is 110V and provides supplies to the Circuit Breakers, motorised isolators and protection relays. The other is 48V and supplies the SCADA equipment on-site. They have to last for at least 3 days without mains to the battery chargers. The likelihood of black start is higher now than it has ever been since our grid was first synchronised together over 80 years ago. Rota disconnections for 3 hours are even more likely this winter.
@@highvoltageswitcher6256 is it mean to give your comment a dislike?! 😑😋
Back in the 80s I worked overseas at a compound that had it's own diesel generation plant. Being a tech, I got elected to run the plant for the 3 weeks a year that the normal plant manager was on vacation. The plant consisted of 2 big honking caterpillar powered generators of which one would run at a time. Every day I would fire up the standby unit and sync and switch them without dropping the load. As a tech, I understood the forces involved in syncing the generators every day, and it kind of creeped me out. The generator enclosure was very small requiring the operator to stand within a foot of the 2 roaring generators when he synched them up and threw the switch. By the end of my 3 week tour of duty each year I would finally be comfortable throwing that switch, but the next year it would start all over again.
I loved this. As an Operator at a large power plant next door to our smaller black start plant, I appreciate the level of detail. And we still use synchroscopes! Also important to note: we're paid a good sum of money, by the state I believe, just to have a black start plant (three small CTs) exist and be ready.
What? You guys get paid for your black start resources?! All we do is get a bunch of NERC requirements thrown at us for maintaining ours. haha We're getting totally ripped off! 😋
During the Great Blackout of 2003, The power companies asked customers to turn off heir air conditioners and leave them off for a few days after the power was restored. An upscale suburb near me had their power restored at about 10:00 am. By 11:00 am the power was back out again.
People are morons. Me first, me first!
...and this is why we will never travel the stars.
@R Hamlet It doesn't matter what class a person is. We all need water, food, and shelter at a habitable temperature. Especially the elderly. That is why electricity is so vital to our modern way of life.
@rhamlet5290 I once lived in an area where there power outages were not rare. Our neighborhood was cut more often than others, because there were buisness offices and some rich-ish people living there - thus they had the means to have power generators and not suffer from the outage. We very quickly negociated with our landlord to have a generator installed after a few months (not powerful enough for the oven, hob, or water heater, but it did mean that the heating was still on, as well as the water, light, and fridge. If we were careful, we could even use the microwave). But yes, when they had to cut electricity, they indeed tried to target those who could more easily ”afford” it.
These days there are battery farms, be interested to know if they are useful in a black start. I read they are good in smoothing out demand as it takes time for a coal powered power station to come online. I suppose any power station will take time.
As a fellow Texas Engineer, I really appreciate your videos! Municipal water supplies would be another good topic with lots of examples to pull from locally. I know we recently had an emergency repair on our deep water intake that was a fascinating example of how repairs are done on an active utility with minimal (or major) disruptions.
'major' should been in bold, for Texas.
I always wonder how big the collective face palm among Texas Engineers was when the 2021 blackout was blamed on renwable sources by officials.
@@ValleysOfRain while everybody knew it was due to powerline failures and fossil fuel plants and pipeline not designed for the cold and not prepared for it. Had they built 4 wind turbines less the entire grid had collapsed completely
@@ValleysOfRain It wasn't just the engineers, it was anyone with enough intelligence to vet and understand the readily-available information they found on the web. But I bet it was big.
@@ValleysOfRain Nuclear is the way.
I'm a Ukrainian living in Kyiv and I'm finally glad to see an explanation on this topic. The power company has been driving us mad because they always turn on our neighbours' apartment building before our own haha. And since this system is still being repaired, a power balancing schedule is in place.
Ukraine's electrical engineers are probably the most experienced in black starts in the world, unfortunately. Hope last night's demonstration that their air bases aren't safe even 500km away!
Слава Україні! Stay safe, and stay strong! ✊️
@Ellotherem8 Mmmm, gravy.
Our thoughts are with you in Ukraine. It's only down to 7 degrees here in the UK, but that still feels bloody cold - and I have a warm home to go back to. Last time I was in your part of the world at this time of year it was down to -15 some nights. That you cope with conditions like that with no power is nothing short of miraculous. Слава Україна!
Stay safe and stay strong. The arc of history is long, but it bends towards justice.
@@IstasPumaNevada Steven Pinker's writings and presentations are some consolation in that regard.
Ex-Navy Nuke here. The nuclear plants I trained at still used synchroscopes when bringing turbine-generators onto the plant grid; cool to see them mentioned here. Great stuff!
Still the best way, but what he didn't mention was that the lager the generating unit the longer it takes to synchronize it to the rest due to the weight of the rotating elements. Then the units must be loaded to about 40% of full load to stabilize the frequency before the next unit is switched in.
@@henningventer2917 Commercial plants have auto sync but do have the ability to be manually synced. It's rarely used. 8 years navy nuc plus 23 years commercial nuc operation experience here.
Ex-Navy Navy Mechanical Operator here. Some the smartest people I ever met. And some of the weirdest people I ever met. One of the Most memorable times in my life.
Pump Storage schemes can act like a shock absorber to the system. The ability to consume as well as generate large quantities of power is seriously under rated
And a few miles to my west we have the largest pump-storage facility in the world and these things are terrific buffers.
As an electrical engeneer I was amazed how detailed yet simple you have kept this video.
Ditto
As a civil engineer who wanted retain as little from my circuits class as I could, I appreciate it as well :)
Thanks again for this great series Grady! As an electrical engineer in systems protection, I really enjoyed these videos. I'll never forget the report we read about a coal fired plant that was not properly synced to the grid (they bypassed all FOUR sync checks for some reason or another). The generator was thrown through the roof of the 14 story high building, and pieces were found up to 3 miles away. Amazingly, no one was killed in this accident. Synchronizing the grid is absolutely terrifying, but luckily we have relays that can automate most of the manual process at this point.
Is the report accessible to the public by any chance? Any security cam footage?
I'd love to see that report - got a name for the incident or something?
Wouldn't it 'just' trip a breaker?
Was that the one where the generator coupler went through the washroom?
Side story, I previously ran an old 1949 GE genset, with an older 1930’s air operated breaker. Well the air breaker hung up, and when it finally decided to close we were approx 120 degrees out. Well luckily the building just shook and the dust was coming from the ceiling. Unfortunately that generator never sounded the same again, sounded like the wedging all loosened up, it made a fairly loud new growl. Granted this is after the sync relay sent the close, and they unfortunate fact that once a close was sent, an open signal wouldn’t do anything. This was a small 16.5 mw rated unit, we got 20 mw out of at 12 psi on the casing pressure with H2. Miss that old plant. Now I run 34 screens and mice, and gas turbines.
I love seeing all the industry veterans coming out of the woodwork with positive and informative comments. Respect to you guys!
Boeing 727s had 3 separate three phase generators (one on each engine) The flight engineer had to synchronize each generator before connecting that generator to the bus. The engineer would adjust the frequency with a knob and watch two blinking lights. When the lights went out together the engineer knew it was OK to connect the generators. Called closing the bus tie. 😁
Same thing as he's talking about.
A very simple procedure.
HUGE props to the linemen who spent this past Holiday Weekend working outside, in below-zero temperatures, restoring power to hundreds of thousands of people here in the Northeast!
I'm just a lowly software developer, but for a short time, I worked for Western Area Power Administration. While there I had the opportunity to go through their multi-day EPTC training program in Lakewood, CO about operating the grid. One of the things we had to do was start up a small grid in their training facility. The whole training was eye-opening. It was one of those "I didn't know what I didn't know" experiences akin to first learning assembly. If you (the reader of this comment) and I were in the same room I could describe the surprise I experienced when turning a small generator and FEELING the increase in difficulty when a small incandescent flashlight bulb was added to the circuit. Then the mind blowing 🤯 moment when everything clicked and I understood the reason why breakers exist throughout the grid. It's complex and beautiful.
The EPTC is A NERC certified facility for training and has folks from all over the US come in for training.
That sort of reminds me of the flashlight bulb thing of how in some of the museums they would have you know the demonstration for how electricity is generated using hand crank generator and alone possibly a few additional loads like this and switches between the course for demonstrating about how it's harder to generate more power as the load is increased!
I've seen some people just say Wow to something like this of course!
I've been in many museums in my life also I had gone to the Grand Coulee Dam when I was just a kid!
Another place and it was a museum sort of thing Educational Center you know close to the complex of a nuclear power station!
They actually did have a small Solar Ray there which is kind of interesting seeing just even with the clouds passing over just how much it affects the output from the solar panels that was pretty cool!
Also they had a demonstration there which was a model frame it might have either HO scale or N scale train I cannot remember which of the two.
They had solar panels on the back of the display case and reflector problems toward the front angle at the panels to demonstrate the effect of providing solar power all these were connected to a dimmer on the front of the display!
That one thing we are at a museum one time me my father they had a demonstration steam engine my father even was fascinated by this thing it was probably one of those intriguing things I'd say in a long time at Museum regarding production of power of any sort!
This was a lot more recent than all the others that I mentioned at least in terms of going there.
You actually had full operation of all the controls and this is one that was also equipped with condenser and everything else all the bills and whistles which I had not actually seen a demonstration on this scale of detail and Technical nature is this but definitely well designed and very informative and something that really gets things across like just how things work and the complexities involved with doing something like this and even for me was mind-blowing considering that I've actually worked with other equipment that's more complex than this but still something like that is less complex and all but yet more of a wow factor and more.
It's not everyday you can feel more around with a piece of equipment like that it's just this is not just meant for older folks this was kids you know I mean they need more exhibits like this some places!
Right now everything's just to high tech you could say!
Sometimes if things are dumb down a bit instead of all these fancy things that you actually instead of just pushing a button or throwing a switch you have to open up an app on your phone to even turn something on!
Don't even get me started about the clouds and if the internet doesn't work you can't turn your lights on sort of thing and I can't actually happen under the right conditions too!
I knew someone that had smart switches everywhere F1 store or another well there are nothing out and Chaos ensued!
The only way to get lines was the unplug all the smart switches and plug lamps directly to power problem is almost all their hardwired light fixtures were on Smart switches!
This is not one of the ones that can run independently of the internet!
All they really need to do is have some sort of manual override that basically just turns the switch on or off at the switch either as a convenience which could be used for and also as a backup to if there is a communication issue a hub issue an infrastructure issue what have you that would still work like a normal simple light switch if for other reasons you cannot turn on the light it would just be one or two inputs and a few extra lines of code on the switch itself problem solved.
Oh and of course you could actually naming corporate a couple extra buttons for other features or even to maybe do another group of Lights Plus you can monitor the status of those buttons for on and off that could signal to something else that you had turned off manually which could also be a trigger for a different event or say anything else it'd be a bonus extra feature they can make a little cost a little bit more but people might buy it for this reason alone that it had the capability of being actually turned on and off as long as the switch itself was operational and everything else is gone Waco
I worked for WAPA also as a substationelectrician, We had real world training using Fort Peck hydro generator and a local substation to go through black start procedures! The EPTC was one of the many classes/ training I had while there! Best job to date!
This video coudn't possibly have been released at a better time. An excellent explanation of what is actually happening nearly every week down here in Ukraine.
Can you imagine how hard these guys/ gals are working to both fix the physical damage (caused by the madman Putler) and continuously doing one black start after another day in and day out. What a horrible situation to be put thru.
@@SuperRede4u Spew that propaganda! Don't blame the evil in control of our countries. They wouldn't lie to you.
@@TheMrTape more Kool-Aid your down a quart and a quick toke to clear the head - isn't that your motto komrad?
@@SuperRede4u I'm Danish, as opposed to what your TV-induced bias made you think. They're lying to you...
@@TheMrTape wrong!
12:59 thats exactly what was happening during the Texas freeze. Our electricity was off and on within a second over a 7 minute period. Our power would return, then go out right at 7 minutes later (give or take 5 seconds). I started noticing our refrigerator, heat pump and other large appliances with a "time out" period after power is restored would start around 5-7 minutes. This must have been overloading our local substation causing it to trip and reset. This happened for around 12 hours before we started losing power for much longer periods.
That GE sync scope brought back some fond memories for me. 50 years ago, I was a load dispatcher in a big steel mill. There were 2, 30MW generators. When we synced a generator to the local utility grid, we controlled the steam admission valves to make the sync scope run in the clockwise direction at about the 2 times the speed of a clock second hand. We would excite the generator at a voltage, just a bit higher (14kV) than the grid voltage (13.8kV). When the sync scope was at about 5 till noon, we closed the breaker to the grid. The higher speed caused an immediate MW load on the generator of about 5% and the higher excitation voltage over the grid caused an immediate positive MVAR loading. This was preferred over closing the breaker on a static sync needle exactly at 12 noon as it avoided potential motoring of the turbine-generator and potential overheating from negative MVAR loading. If you did good, the turbine floor didn't flex when the breaker closed, if you messed up, the whole powerhouse sounded like a bomb when off. I was a kid at the time but I can still remember my old native Swedish boss yelling at me to "pick up those vats, and gimme some more wars".
Nice to see a man that still worked with steam. Im from the era of simple cycle steam in utility scale power plants Foster Wheeler and Combustion Engineering plants. There aint many of us left.
Great video that covers the challenges of starting a power grid from a blackout. I used to work at a power plant that included two coal units and four combustion turbines, two of which were black start capable. We did a test where we disconnected from the grid, started up the black start combustion turbines, then started up one of the coal units before connecting back to the grid. It took a lot of planning and coordination to do this, but it was a great exercise.
synchroscopes are still used today. I personaly use them on ships to synch a generator to the ship's net when more capacity is needed (for heavy consumers like a cargo plant, large cranes or thrusters). It is remarkable how similar a black start is to what we call a cold ship start.
We still have analog synchroscopes on the main grid just in case we need to rebuild by phone.
Boy, seeing that synchroscope takes me back. We had those in the plant and in the control-room simulator. Simulator drove actual real synchroscopes with the needed voltages/frequencies. Having students learning to sync to the grid was a part of every operator's training.
Likewise!
Sorry, replied to the wrong message!
We still use synchscopes.
Today, I had the opportunity to thank a veteran for his military service. I'm going to take this moment to thank you, and everyone in the power industry, for YOUR service. Everyone in the modern world relies on engineers and technical workers in a variety of fields we never even think of, but the work is critical, and the people who do it are to be appreciated. Thank you.
There's another TH-camr, Chris Boden, who has a series called 'Authorized Personnel Only' about the inner workings of a hydroelectric plant. He has one where he shows starting up and syncing the 400,000 watt power plant to the grid. The control panel has the same synchroscope. Fascinating set of videos.
See, this content beats all the conventional stuff all the time. Grady can just... _deliver_ complex ideas so simply and make you really appreciate what goes into keeping society running. As someone tweeted: "Society is only 36 hours away from total chaos" 😳 Thanks for making such great content - and book - Grady!
I agree, I've never seen anything even remotely this good on traditional television, even back when it was pretty good.
Thats a dramatic way to see it, but as accurate as another quote I've heard. "When you put your finger to the pulse of society, it beats once every 36 hours"
His videos have made me appreciate civil engineering much more then i used too
As a former power plant operator, the prospect of a black start was terrifying.
Question - why don’t plants simply disconnect from the grid rather than shut down. That way the plant can continue powering itself and would simplify grid recovery.
@@stephenblack8804 Not a plant/grid operator (I'm a computer/telecom engineer) but I'll try to take a stab at this. There are lots of really seasoned and actually-qualified veterans/professionals in this comments section so if one of them corrects me, take their word over mine.
While I'm sure some plants do just what you're thinking, there are three big problems that I can think up:
1. Many plants are not able to operate for very long with no load: When the prime mover is going at full torque, it depends on the resistance of a generator to keep the RPMs down. To avoid damage to the plant, it's better to shut it down completely when it isn't powering anything. This is the whole "balancing act" of bringing groups of customers back online: we can't just bring all plants up, get everything stable, then say "OK, throw the switch" and connect the customers. We have to keep every plant within its minimum/maximum range, hence the back-and-forth "more plants, more loads, now more plants, now more loads" process... add to that the temporary nature of the "cold start pickup" for each group of loads and I imagine there's a lot more guesswork and intuition involved than pure technique.
2. OK, let's suppose we only have "ideal" plants that are perfectly happy operating anywhere from 0-100% capacity indefinitely. If we disconnect all of those from the grid and keep them idling, we aren't just isolating them from the loads, we're also isolating them from *each other.* This means that the phase/frequency and voltage of each one will fall out of sync over time. It's a lot easier to get one disconnected plant in sync with the rest of the grid than it is to sync many isolated plants with each other, or a whole group of plants with a some other whole group of plants, so in practice the sync-and-connect would end up being one or two at a time anyway.
3. In the event of an overloaded grid, I have to imagine plant operators would rather fight to the bitter end than disconnect. If an overloaded plant disconnects (which it may have to, for safety or to avoid damage), that excess load is just going to suddenly hit the neighboring plants and force them to disconnect too, and you get a cascading failure resulting in blackout anyway. Operators would rather fight the overload and try to ride it out, if at all possible, to avoid the blackout and subsequent "terrifying" black start.
I'd like to know this also, I'm sure there is a reasonable explanation but I am curious.@@stephenblack8804
@@stephenblack8804 Because you need a balance of supply and demand. In the case of a sudden black out a power plant is not capable to regulate that quickly. The system has inertia. Plus you can only power low systems so much. Transformators dont work that well under 10% of designed load.
@@stephenblack8804 Reaction time. Substation breakers are automatic and don't signal to every power plant "Hey, fellas, I'm about to cut off in 3, 2, 1..." and when a hazard such as a sudden power station disconnection or line disconnection happens, the grid has mere seconds to adjust before the breakers trip and everything is desynchronized and shut down.
Additionally, islanding (a power plant separating itself from the grid and only powering itself) is a specific operation regime that takes time (several minutes) to get to. When the power grid is at high demand (as is the case when there's a risk for a blackout), all the power plants are going to be operating at high power. Before disconnecting from the grid and islanding, the plants need to run down their turbines until their generators are producing exactly as much power as the plant is consuming. A nuclear power plant might consume 35 MW in operation, but most of the time it'll be producing over 1000 MW-- running down the turbine from 1000 MW to 35 takes a long time, and, as previously mentioned, there are only mere seconds between a catastrophic fault and a total grid collapse.
Thirdly, it's pointless. If you disconnect every power plant from the grid, all you've done is desynced all your generators from eachother and cut off all of your consumers from power-- you've just done a blackout, except way worse than most controlled blackouts because now each power plant has to re-synchronize with eachother from scratch. If you have the time to coordinate every power plant disconnecting from the grid, you should just do controlled rolling blackouts to limit load.
I remember that Nov '65 blackout. The odd part is how we had no idea how widespread it was until we powered up a 9-volt 'transistor' radio. Even then, reports did not fully appreciate the scale of the outage for many hours. Today, we can access phone apps that show a play-by-play of who's dropping off and who's coming back.
Coffee maker is totally the most important thing during black start. You don't want sleeping zombies doing the startup. Probably will break more stuff. 😂
Agree about coffee. Here in NH we occasionally have massive statewide blackouts due to winter ice storms. We have a backup generator now but prior to that I liked to joke that power in town was rarely cut off because there were no trees to fall on power lines so at least we were able to find hot coffee.
coffee maker is part of critical infrastructure that excites the brain of operators in generating station
A black coffee during the black start on a black and cold winter evening.
It is the maniacal desire for hot fresh non-instant coffee that will drive the workers doing the power restoration to efficiency. There is no life without coffee!
On the plus side, heating devices like coffee makers are very nice loads from a stability standpoint. No weird phase issues.
An excellent video, as usual for you Grady! I've been involved in this issue on a MUCH smaller scale as an Engineer in the US Navy in the early '70s. We had three, 750 kW steam turbine generators and one diesel 750 kW emergency generator on board. We would run drills wherein we would "lose the load" and all equipment would trip off line (generators, main engines, boilers, etc.) while at sea and practice bringinging everything back online using the diesel generator to accomplish this.
How fast could you get everything back online?
I used to work at the San Francisco Naval Shipyard and tested ship service generators. We weren't supposed to parallel with shore power but sometimes we had to do it when they were testing radars and other electronics. Fun!
@@KJ6EAD IIRC it was about an hour or so to get back up on line fully. But we were limited to 1/2 speed or less for the first hour or so of operation due to our HP turbine tending to develop a bowed rotor if not brought offline properly.
Did you have to synchronize the generators when connecting to shore power, or was it an instantaneous cut over?
@@krallja I didn't get involved in that (Electrician's Mates did that, I was a Machinist's Mate, I ran turbines, pumps, etc.) But I do know that synchonization was part of the process for bringing up a generator, bring down a generator, and switching to shore power.
Britain has two pumped-storage facilities, one in Wales and one in Scotland that are designated Black Start stations. They are never run down to empty so they can provide Black Start power to the rest of the grid if necessary. As you said, it's never been tested for real because blacking out the nation's entire grid just to see if it would recover properly is not a feasible proposition.
Here's my local one 😊
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station
We got two big dams for a water powered power plant in the alps.. and they are both able to be black started.. basically, you somehow need to manually enable water running down the mountain until it hits the turbine.
This is why energy is not easy... The grid and it's operators make it look easy and effortless. You just pointed out how complex the issues are, and I'm sure it's the tip of the iceberg. Thanks for showing and demonstrating the issues of Cold Load Pickup... that mechanical model really brought the issue to life about synchronization. I already knew about this, but watching that second motor jump when connected two out of phase generators drove the concept home. BTW: I'm enjoying your new book, fabulously illustrated and explanations are clear... I just love that kind of thing. Thanks!
Yeah, I only heard about it before, trying to imagine the twisting and jumping of a 300MW turbine shaft.
Great video, when I was a kid one of my dads responsibilities was the standby generators of a small town in Papua New Guinea. This was a manually controlled pair of diesel CATs. When starting during a blackout you have to get 1 of the generators running from the battery, once you got it on you then have power to the shed and starting the second is easy. Then you have to sync the two using the lights, get it wrong and the CATs really growl as they fight each other. Never realised how these were wired till now, makes total sense. Once your ready to go then you bring on the town using two seperate circuits, each time you throw a circuit the lights dim, the CATs bog down under load before the governor kicks in. You wait 30 seconds for everything to settle then throw the second. Fun times.
Grady, as an old EE guy, I want to say that your series on the power grid has been excellent. And you could continue on the complexities for a lot longer than most folks are willing to accept.
Yes, it is a house of cards. It tends towards instability which can only be prevented by constant monitoring and adjusting.
And this instability is only getting worse with the addition of small, static generation sources like solar, or wind power.
Every time I watch these videos, I learn something that is completely obvious in hindsight but I would never have thought about otherwise. Engineers are on a completely different level.
A lot of the experience engineers gained is gained from disasters and hindsight, believe me.
I think of engineering as “quantified paranoia.” You’re not done if your design only works under ideal conditions. You’re getting close to done if you can confidently answer questions like:
- how would this break?
- how much can it handle until it breaks?
- how likely is it to break?
- how bad is it when it breaks?
- how can we avoid the worst consequences if it breaks?
And yeah, a lot of best practices are informed by past people breaking stuff and learning the hard way.
Interesting. I live in Florida and have experienced storms ranging from "merely" tropical to full blown CAT-2 hurricanes. I've lived in the same house all these decades and have wondered why it sometimes takes just as much time (sometimes even more) to get back power from a lesser storm. This video gave me a greater appreciation of what goes into restoring a grid beyond simple physical damage to lines, transformers and substations.
Wait till you go thru a Cat 5. Try 5 weeks without commercial power. Local nuke plants cannot run without the grid being up. Even when there were oil fired units right next door. Power went out from the plants to a substation and then back to the plant. Substation going down or the grid going down resulted in the reactors scramming. So a minor storm that took out a minor part of the grid could result in power being out for days until the HV lines were back up.
@@gravelydon7072 I can believe that. Just looking at what happened to those poor souls in the Southwest of my state... Brrr, those drone footages are scary as hell. I'm pretty sure it will take them weeks just to get power up throughout that area.
@@Vulpine407 They will in most areas have an easier time than down here. Here if you dig down 6" you are in rock. When Andrew came thru, it snapped off most poles at ground level. That included brand new concrete poles that were 4' in diameter and so new that the power had never been turned on to them yet. On our street is one lone survivor of Andrew. The pole in front of our house was put in in 1978 when our house was built. They had to top it to install a new insulator but our transformer was put back in use for almost another 5 years after that. It has a lean to the West but it has survived a Cat 5, several Cat 1,, Cat 2, and Cat 3 Hurricanes.
After Andrew, my employers flew over the areas hit with the District chopper. I have the unedited videos from that with the time stamp on it. Now days drones do the same work. And yes, I can feel for those on our West coast having been thru one of the worst in US history.
As a Mississippian I am surprised you’ve lived in Florida for decades and still haven’t been through a 4 or 5. I still have nightmares about Katrina when I see hurricanes on the tracker heading our way.
@@huntercarter5426 2005 was a bad year for us down here too. While we didn't have a Cat 5, we did have 3 of them one right after another. Katrina, Rita, and Wilma all touched us with Katrina a Cat 1 at the time , Rita was a Cat 2, and I forget what Wilma was when near here. With Rita we lost power for a week as the crews had to repair some of the three phase lines before they could get us powered back up. Once the crew arrived, it took them most of the day to find where the fault was. It was a cracked insulator that they only found after blowing a number of fuses trying to locate it. It was a 3 mile long power line. We now are on a segment that is only 1/2 mile long. Much easier to find the fault but bumps us down as far as priority.
Dang, this is very well-researched. As a former control room operator in a black-start facility, and recently a control room operator in system/transmission operations (our annual black start restoration plan training starts tomorrow!), everything you mentioned jives with what I know about black starts. Usually I pick up on little Gell-Mann bits, but all your electric grid videos I watched today were flawless. Great job!
This reminds me very much of disaster recovery plans in other industries. "When the worst happens, once you stabilize or correct the situation, what steps must be taken in order to restore operations? What are the priority areas that need to be restored first and how do we protect them as we restart services?" I've done things like that on large IP networks. I was once in a situation where several devices went offline in an unplanned outage. We couldn't simply bring them all back up because the system would never converge with all the activity from nearby devices. We had to bring things back online literally one at a time from the center out to the edge and keep things from talking until the system was stable enough to accept the communication. Took hours.
Even though we were at or at least very much near maximum breaker capacity at the local television station in my city, we had this problem with the technical room that held the servers.
After a blackout (which are rare in The Netherlands, but can be very much based on where you live, the older neighbourhoods in a city tend to be a bit more prone to them) we had to start each server independently because switching them all on with all of their control circuits doing their boot-checks and all the fans at maximum speed and disks spinning up would immediately sink so much current through the breaker we'd trip it :P .
(We had a couple of UPS'es that had reached their end of life and as a result kept on charging basically forever, and were not regularly tested, so upon a small disruption that would have any other electrical installation survive without disruption, this would usually trip one of our breakers because a UPS would kick in, suffer a failure quickly due to empty batteries, and upon the power dipping situation being gone trying to switch back pushing the breaker in our building over the top).
@@Dutch3DMaster Yep! Been there too. The Inrush current can be substantial. Had PDUs that had relays in the for cycling outlets remotely. We deployed some large servers for data storage. The inrush current was enough to literally weld the relays closed. We had to replace dozens of PDUs with upgraded units.
I enjoy your videos. When I was a power plant operator, we synchronized the oncoming generator with the synchroscope moving "slowly in the fast direction" and at a few moments before straight up. This combination (slow in the fast direction and slightly before straight up) causes the oncoming generator to pick up real voltage (as opposed to VARs) and positive load immediately upon closure, and minimizes the risk of a reverse current trip.
I am really enjoying the last couple videos. I write the blackstart, restoration, and emergency plans for the grid in my area. it is nice to see someone explain major outages so well. Many people have no idea of the grid's complexity.
Another great video. I love the effort you put into these garage demos. Too bad you had to sacrifice two automotive alternators but it visually got the point across.
They will go on to greater things ;)
No alternator were harmed to make this video, they ascended.
@@PracticalEngineeringChannel connect the alternators to a 3 phase step up transformers and make a working useful generator from it to power your house in case of blackouts :)
@@putraadriansyah8082 He still would need electricity to excite the alternators, and to drive the electric motors that turn the alternators!
@@putraadriansyah8082 What? You can't get something from nothing!😁
As a Ukrainian I find this video especially interesting as our engineers are fighting blackouts 24/7 for the last 3 month trying to keep the power grid running while the transformers and power plants are being knocked out by Russian rockets and drones. I owe to them. This people are heroes.
All Ukraine are heroes and so many people support your fight. It is criminal what has been inflicted on your country.
Glory to Ukraine! 🇺🇦
Worked in power plants all my working life and experienced alot of hair raising situations and failures, but never rockets and drones! Can't wait for Putin to get a rocket up the a**....
That’s why we need to do away with this grid. Power supply units need to work with all voltages. Switch mode does this. Powerplants like solar or wind need to just amplify everything in the grid using their switch mode transformer. At least up to 24V until they are sure that no one works on the cable.
Stay safe and fight the good fight
Grady,
Ship power plants are smaller versions of the main power grid. For the cold start of a ship plant, you need a source of power. If the ship is docked, say at a shipyard, you can use shore power. If the ship is at sea, you rely on the emergency generator, which generally rely on batteries to start. I know of a case where a part was flown in to a dead ship, along with a supervising engineer, from California to the Persian Gulf. After changing the suspect part the emergency generator wouldn't start. The batteries were dead.
A recommendation was made to install a second set of batteries. But, if they are dead as well, how do you start the generator? Ultimately, we installed hydraulic starters as backups to the batteries. If all else fails you can use muscle power to recharge the hydraulic pressure with a hand pump.
On the last new build project I worked on besides the emergency generator with battery and hydraulic start, we installed a hand cranked single cylinder diesel generator. This engine was sized with enough power to start the ship service diesel generator.
I should also mention, these hand cranked engines were installed on tankers that have two fully redundant 11 MW engine rooms. Each of the two engine rooms meets all regulatory requirements for a single engine room. Twin-screw, twin-rudder, twin control rooms, separated by a watertight bulkhead.
Bob
I would be really interested in getting a breakdown of what happened in North Carolina for the deliberate Act of terrorism and how they manage restarting the grid after repairs are made. This is actually a very on point video, as this very situation is happening right now.
Are they actually calling it terrorism, or is that a term you decided to use just now? I'm not trying to downplay the impact of a serious power outage but it seems like the bar for terrorism has lowered quite a bit over the past 20 years.
I believe the news said someone shot holes in some transformers.
All over a drag show, yeesh!
@@Oberon4278 yes, its domestic terrorism. It was a coordinated effort against our infrastructure.
The infrastructure damaged in Moore County are "just" substations. Substations don't generate any electricity; they just help distribute it, and the amount of consumers isolated from the grid due to this damage isn't terribly significant to the nearby power plants. The inrush loads when the substations are repaired and reactivated is probably the only thing somewhat close to black start concerns.
I have a background in electronics engineering and, honestly, this video was an absolute eye opener for me! The startup demands make perfect sense but I hadn't considered all of the ramifications of starting up from dark. Thank you for making this!
Nice job Grady, I enjoy all your videos especially this series as I've been a substation guy for over 20 years. We still practice manual synchronization a couple times a year, just in case we can't rely on the relaying.
Also, I wanted to mention not only do you have to synchronize the power Islands, you combine them to build enough load to provide frequency stability for the grid and the larger power plants. A large nuke for example, needs a certain amount of load to have a stable 60 hertz frequency. So that's why they build relatively large islands before bringing large plants online.
I have no idea what you are talking about.... but thank you for knowing!
Don't all nuclear power plants have to be able to blackstart?
They need emergency power anyways, because the cooling pumps have to be kept spinning at all times.
@@alanwesterfield4254 Put simply, the thing spins to make power, but you need power to start it spinning.
For some power stations (nuclear in this case) they also need something for the spinning thing to actually send power to, or it'll spin too fast. (or too fast/too slow/too fast-too /slow which is also real bad)
So you have to get it enough power from somewhere else to start, and also connect it to enough stuff that it spins at the right speed, but not too much or it'll stop spinning and you have to start over (assuming that stopping it spinning didn't break something)
@@jannikheidemann3805
Nuclear plants have to be able to reach cold shutdown without offsite power. There is no requirement to blackstart.
@@fredlotte2601 Thank you for clarifying.
Thanks for showing the syncroscope! I ran nuke plants in the Navy and we used those to sync power freq and phase to bring power distribution segments online. The usual rule was to get the scope turning clockwise at a slow rate, then operate the breaker as the needle was approaching 10:30 o'clock, giving the mechanism a little time to operate and close at 12 o'clock (ideally). During a training event, a new operator closed the breaker much too early - around 8 o'clock - and the breaker "rapidly disassembled" itself. That shut us down for a few days, but it was better that the breaker died than a steam powered turbine generator :)
Working in the power plant training field, this information is very accurate. I have run simulators that start from a black start, and the procedure is much different than a normal start. One plant was designed independently of the grid because its power use used for industrial use. It had five black start diesel generators that started a 5MW natural gas turbine used to bring up the larger natural gas 75MW turbines. The lube oil and cooling pumps are major power draw devices beyond the computer control systems to start these plants. To increase efficiency, heat recovery created steam to run additional steam turbines.
I remember it well. Not to long after the Nov 9, 1965 blackout, Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact magazine dot a fact article on the restarting of the grid. They described the employees of a generating plant somewhere in New England (memory fails) hooking up their vehicles in order to provide in-plant power to start up the the plant that restarted the grid.
I was working as a lab technician in Ottawa, Ontario, but lived just across the river in Quebec. I can’t remember whether we lost power at home too. . . but in our area the place put lasted only a few hours.
Not unheard of, some PTO generators are that way.
I really think you should add one more video to this series: Distributed grids. It'd be a great way to connect traditional power generation with the other videos you've done on renewable energy and residential solar.
Grady, you are literally filling in all the spots in my brain that my high school teachers failed to do. i actually think school is set up in an odd way. i in fact had no desire to focus on learning and using information until i was well into my late twenties. most young kids don’t desire to learn i think. i imagine it might be a cool experiment to put people in an educational program after they’ve aged a bit and experienced what life is
As someone in their late twenties that now finds educational videos and documentaries fascinating, I agree!
@@OAFNation314 when i was a young teen, i had very little desire to learn and therefore be educated on things like science, history, mathematics, mechanics, economics and so on. but after growing into my early 30s, i oddly find myself much more interested in the things going on in and around the planet. I think that educational leaders may have lost sight of what’s most important, but that’s not surprising considering how corrupt of a time we live in. peace to you friend
@@jackNimoy what could they have done differently when you were younger? was the material just not relevant or challenging? or was it you who changed and matured and started to appreciate learning these things, but younger you just wasn't ready for it?
It's almost like teaching kids how to live in society, then when they are fully devolved they can be filled with knowledge.
Humans are curious by nature. We live to learn about our surroundings, ever since we are babies.
The reason you don’t like to learn in SCHOOL is because you are expected to be assessed on all types of subjects, even the ones that you won’t pursue in the future. They feed you with all sorts of information which is near impossible to retain, unless you want to spend every day of your teenage years studying all of it.
Besides that, it is also rare for a teacher to actually make a subject interesting. I’m in uni right now and nothing has changed. There will be lecturers that give us labs, projects, rewards, etc… and then there will be lecturers who will read off a powerpoint and call it a day.
I had long wondered about the black start after the 1965 black grid event. Writers always focus on the initiating event and the chain of failures. My introduction to the grid (and only professional involvement) was briefly consulting in the late ‘80s on an AI system at Toshiba for black start of the grid in Kyushu. I didn’t learn a lot (everything was in Japanese and my involvement was brief and focused on performance), but it sparked my interest ever since. Before COVID hit, I was working on an educational simulation to show various grid concepts, black start being one. It’s great to see you cover this; you have a talent for explaining concepts I can only aspire to!
3:55 "I don't own a grid scale three phase generator...yet." this reads like both a promise and a threat
I have been a PM for transmission projects for the last year. I have been recommending your videos to our younger/junior PM's with out much experience in the energy industry. The 500kV underground line fascinated our office.
Also I was in 3rd grade when the 2003 black out started. Now at 28, I'm now working on the program that started in response to the black out and there is no end in sight to it.
Oh, you are so young. I was working a different engineering sector in 2003.
I can confirm that you did an amazing job of keeping all the important details yet not getting too much in the details that it would be hard to grasp for anyone not in the loop.
I worked at a facility which was mission-critical. We'd proactively switch to generator before thunderstorms. There were usually phase differences between the generator plant and grid, so the building would noticeably shake when the transfer occurred. Fortunately there were 10, 5, 1 minute warnings with a 10 second countdown over the PA system.
No synchroscopes?
@@williamhuang8309 nope, the genset was a standby model, meant to run when the utility failed. Except we would switch over whenever there were thunderstorms in the area. The transfer switch kicked over when it was warmed up and ready, no method to sync it up
As a retired electro-mechanical technician, out of the industry for many years now, and having acquired a somewhat limited education prior to my entering the workforce, relying on my ability to learn as I experienced various situations, I occasionally found myself confronted with situations beyond my capabilities in knowledge and reasoning.
Of course, I tried to fake it until I made it, usually coming out okay in the end.
There were occasions, though, where I simply had to say, "I don't know."
Those were terrible words for me to have to say to a customer.
The advent of such informative videos such as this one, as well as others, are wonderful to see.
When I was actively working in the industry, I knew that there was much of which I was ignorant, yet how does one know the depths of their own ignorance?
These fabulous, easily understood videos now give me insight to that which I was previously unaware.
Good on ya for presenting these concepts in an easily understood manner.
Lack of power is what caused the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant failure. The backup generators became flooded by the tsunami, killing the power. We all know what happened next. GREAT VIDEO! I wish I was an engineer!
Really good timing on this video! I live in central North Carolina and some people just destroyed a power substation around me in Moore County. Around 40k people are without power including businesses, gas stations, and hospitals. Some have generators. They’re working on rebuilding and restoring power but it may take around a week to do so.
Oh wow, I sure hope everyone is being kept safe. Prayers for a fast restoration🙏
Yep. What happened near you and in WA and OR is called a trial run.
I heard about that. It actually happened twice in North Carolina. It was done by saboteurs.
My father told me about the blackout incident of 2003, he was one of the many people to incorporate those new safety protocols to keep it from happening again
FP&L had one in 2008 that resulted in power loss for about 3 million people. A short circuit with the protective breakers cut out caused 38 Substations, 26 HV grid lines , and power plants in 4 counties to go down. Major loss was the local nuke plants which take care of most of the load. No grid, no nukes as they automatically will drop the rods to shutdown.
I think maybe a Jenga tower is a better analogy for the grid. It's normally quite stable, but several compounding mistakes and overextensions can cause it to topple, and then it has to be reassembled from the ground up
I spent 35 years in Hydro-Electric. I enjoyed my time there. Your series of videos have been a joy to me. Thank you and a job well done.
I'm 40+, architect with an engineering background. I just want to say thank you for all the great videos. They fill the gap the Discovery channel left when they went reality. I really enjoy learning about complex infrastructure and all the inner workings.
Very well done. I have sold protective relaying to the utility and industrial markets for 30 years and you explained the system operations well. Black start is one of those occurrences you have to train for but never want to experience. Always enjoy your videos
I used to live near a black start power station called Littlebrook D, just on the outskirts of London. It used three pairs of Rolls Royce Olympus gas turbines (derived from those used in the Concorde airliner) to start up its conventional oil fired power generator which could then start other stations. It was used in anger following an outage after a big storm in 1987, and it would also start up automatically to help maintain the 50Hz frequency of the grid during periods of high demand, due to its short 5 minute startup time.
There's a similar array of four pairs of Rolls Royce Avon engines at Didcot to provide 100MW of fast response time generation and strategic backup, I think it's a similar setup with it being capable of starting up the much larger gas turbine array that now inhabit the site
Great video as always! As a Ukrainian citizen I can see all this power grid complexity issues. I wish I would never know that :(.
Grid Operator here. I couldn't explain this to the public better it I tried! We do an annual two day training conference with neighbouring utilities, generators, and regulating operators where the main topic is black start and restoration. We also do an additional in house training day 6 months after the training conference. A Black start is no laughing matter.
I’ve been an electrician for 40 years. I love your stuff. Very well explained. People don’t understand and you do a wonderful job explaining it vey intelligent young man and impressive in your explanations.
I am an electrical engineering student and had a lab experiment on synchronisation. Your demonstration has helped me to understand why synchronisation is so important. Thank you
I saw some good videos online showing synchronous motors and how they lag as the load builds until they pull out of synchronization. That would certainly cause some wobbles with a big motor. Also lots of stuff on using one for power factor correction. Im a truck driver not a student but I can understand the principles if not the details from this.I live in South Australia where we have some days using 100% renewable only and exporting to other states thanks to wind/solar farms and high penetration of rooftop PV along with grid scale batteries. The problem is grid stability due to such low "inertia/momentum" because there is not really any spinning generators during high output days and it is easy for harmonics to upset the system. They have installed 4 rotary Condensers which are solely to add a flywheel effect to pull up the grid or keep it down if it surges. You will probably be interested so this is an article on it
www.energymagazine.com.au/sa-synchronous-condensers-installed/
When engineering generator systems, this is why we use protective relays that have an ANSI 25 synchronization check function. It prevents a breaker from closing allowing a generator and a live bus to be connected out of sync. If this happens out of sync, the mechanical synchronization is very bad. 180 degrees out of sync, and it's a kaboom situation.
Yeah! The topic I requested! Working briefly at IESO (Ontario grid operator) as a student, I got to hear stories from operators about the great blackout, like how they had to wheel a photocopier into the control room and other weird stuff. Now I design black start capabilities for microgrids at hospitals and industrial facilities that have on-site cogeneration.
I would LOVE to see you do individual books on each piece of our infrastructure. I have your current book, read it cover to cover and loved it - currently it's with my nieces. With your education style, I would pick up anything else you wrote. Great work, thanks for all the effort!
I distinctly remember how frequently power surges and blackouts were prior to the great power outage. What's most intriguing is you could see how they designed the 'grid' system afterwards, so only very localised spots like a single apartment would go down instead of whole neighbourhoods.
What a brilliant simplified explanation how and why a Blackstart event is such a major issue and can take days to a week (or more) to get everything back up and running. Well done.
I have just retired from a major Electricity Distributor in Australia and "Blackstart" used to come up at least once every 6 months to make sure that everybody was "Ready" in case of a real live event.
Just brilliant, your video should be a "must watch" directive at my ex-employer, as the majority, including electrical qualified personnel do NOT understand how generator/grid synchronization works. This included me until I saw your video, despite that I am qualified in the electrical field.
I worked for a power company for 9 years and this has got to be the best explanation I've heard.
We're getting a lot of practice on the topic thanks to our little orc friends... Love our electricians and engineers!
please stop the dehumanizing.
Its a very steep slippery slope
@@Legendendear Not only do the attackers deserve to be dehumanized, but their comment isn't dehumanizing at all. Ukrainians are allowed to call Russians funny names, it's probably one of the only ways to stay sane during a time like this.
@@TexanMiror2
Dehumanizing is ALWAYS a problem.
Guess how NS Germany began with the propaganda against Jews.
And no, I'm not saying that Ukraine is heading the same way, I just want to point out where it *CAN* end
@@Legendendear feel free to comment down here again if we fail and little orc friends stop by your house.
@@АбракадабраКобра259
That wont happen, even if it did happen.
Cause my small city is not important enough.
They would rush past, towards NATOd centres and take control of em.
But fine. If you promise me, that you treat the Russians with respect who have no control over the situation.
The last we need right now are actions which Russia could use as justification for their atrocities. If you can promise me that, we have a deal.
I was only slightly triggered by that out of round pulley, so I won't cry too loudly. 😅
I remember the 1965 incident. I was in Jr HS and some social event I was looking forward to got cancelled. Teen aged perspective, missing seeing my friends was the most important thing about that.
As usual, a great video. Love the effort you put into these and your clear explanations.
Just imagine what it'd be like for teens now, unless they're lucky enough to have a generator at home, they couldn't even get online to fill the time.
@@cmmartti sometimes even I forget just how "all in one" phones are these days.
I have a really interesting suggestion for an entry into the blackout series. Luma energy here in Puerto Rico and the dozens of blackouts within the first year of its operation. The problem goes way back and reached a tipping point in 2017. This is a good learning point and I feel everyone interested in the topic should know about it.
FYI - Retired nuclear electrician, engineer and power plant operator here. Your discussion of the syncroscope as almost correct. You did NOT want to scope stopped at the 12 o'clock position when closing a breaker to tie two powerplants or grids together but actually moving slow in the fast direction and timed to close at the 12 o'clock. This establishes one plant or grid as slightly faster than the other and causes it to immediately pick up some small amount of loading.
This is important to prevent some other change on the grid loads from occurring that might cause your newly connected but zero load source from going into a reverse power condition. This could damage the equipment or more likely cause a protective relay to operate preventing damage and the transient causing further grid disruption. Like I said its a minor difference but can actually cause entire islands to collapse again during a black start condition.
The timing of these videos was incredibly ideal considering current events.
I never would have known what kind of humanitarian crisis a blackout can be, but it's also incredibly helpful to know that there are at least measures in place to get the power back on.
Thanks for this timely information about how vulnerable things can be and hopefully people can use this to prepare themselves for a similar incident should it happen in the future.
Texas wasn't a blackout though it was a power outage, they simply shed load before collapsing. It might not make a difference to the clients but it is a world of difference at the supply side of things. They simply didn't have the power available to rebuild the grid before the cold front passed.
>hopefully people can use this to prepare themselves for a similar incident should it happen in the future.
Not happening without more production capacity or exchange capacity with neighboring grids.
As someone who has worked in the utility industry, I really appreciate these videos. Accurate and well done
I build molds for high voltage insulators. Your videos are a real highlight for me. Thank you!
I love how you threw in the "coffee maschine" right in the middle of essential stuff like pumps, lights and generators for running a power plant...
I have 15 years in power generation and had 6 more in Navy Nuclear. I really appreciate the manner in which you teach. Not so specific as to lose the audience and with enough detail to show the complexities. For the record, we still use the model sybchroscope you showed, but there are also electronics that prevent paralleling out of phase.
This was a fascinating episode. A grid 'blackstart' always seemed like 'black magic' to me, but Grady makes it understandable.
I’ve worked closely with WAPA in the USVI. They take each island grid down every time there is a tropical storm or hurricane. And so they must have a blackstart recovery each time, which is difficult bit on a smaller scale than any off the three grids in the US/Canada (Eastern Interconnect, Western Interconnect, ERCOT). Large grid or small grid, getting them up and synchronized is a challenge.
I get generator synchronization but grid synchronization begs many questions:
What is used for the grid frequency reference?
How is the generator frequency in each island adjusted?
Would only 1 transmission tie line be used for the initial sync?.
@@JohnDoe-od1yj From my EE education, one line would provide initial sync, then each additional line might need phase adjustment before establishing a redundant connection that turns the lines into an actual grid. Fortunately, most black starts happen on a grid where all the lines were correctly adjusted just a few hours earlier, so they tend to be in sync already and just need power to run. Situation is much worse when recovering from major grid damage as the adjustments will have to be redone during the process, as the grid is essentially being rebuilt. Someone will have to watch synchronization meters at each interconnect before closing the big switches. Oh, and good luck phoning the control room from the field as telecoms have been skimping out on their back up systems for about 2 decades now. I hope the grid operators have backup power for the old control fiber optic networks to function during black starts.
I really appreciate this series. Experienced my second blackout recently after a plane hit some powerlines in Montgomery County MD and its kinda reassuring knowing all that has to happen to get the power back online.
So many different concepts I've been familiar with all come together in a major power grid. Large multi engine jetliners have an APU (Auxiliary Power Unit) that start via a battery and provide enough power to start the main engines, which is similar to the black start generators. When you turn the key in a car to start the engine, while the starter is cranking power is cut to the radio and other accessories to push power to the starter, similar to isolating the main grid from the transmission lines while getting power stations back online. Synching generators to provide proper phase alignment is like when we started 2 generators on the ship while I was in the Navy, the electricians had to get both gensets' phases synched up to put them in parallel so they both shared the load. So many "moving parts" to deal with!!
As an Alumna of Bellingham Tech, you just made me smile. Just watched your blackout vid, and followed it with this black start vid. Good stuff. Our fancy world is great, but yeah, it's so fragile, when you think thru how many little things ALL have to work to keep it running. :/
I did a double take when Grady mentioned BTC. I never would’ve thought local endeavors would cross paths with this channel. It shouldn’t be surprising though, you folk at BTC are class A 💫
What did you study at BTC? Electrical engineering I’d wager.
@@Listeningtomuzak no, I thought about electrical but ended up doing medical stuff. I just enjoy science. :)
Well, I knew running/starting/recovering a grid was complex, but I had no idea it was THAT complex! Thanks, Grady, another excellent video. In fact I could quite happily have watched a much longer one on the same subject - a fascinating topic. But spare a thought for the poor engineers in Ukraine - trying to keep their grid running while they've got a lunatic constantly hitting vital parts of it with missiles. They may not be fighting on the front line, but those people are still heroes.
Great video! You explain bringing up the grid and synchronizing generators very well. After a Public Safety Power Shutdown here in California it takes some time for the Pacific Gas & Electric Company to bring power back to customers. Your video tells why this is.
I went to college in the mid 90s. We had a class called Electrical Energy Conversion, and the associated lab. The lab had some giant machines in it that were just bulky versions of the model you made. One "genius" decided it would be fun to try and bring both generators online almost completely out of phase. the resulting electrical arc spanned the classroom. Sadly mine was the last class ever for that course, as they shut it down the next year due to "low demand", since it was considered an electic.
Really good explanation regarding blackouts and black start. I'm now retired, but for years I was a system operator and then trainer for system operations. My principle role was helping develop and train current operators, the implementation of our System Restoration Plan for my company and province. One thing not mentioned here that can be a challenge is when two islands are finally brought to where there is only one breaker separating them, there is potential for a 2 per unit (2PU) voltage (or 180 deg out of phase) to be imposed across the contacts of the open breaker. In the past it was no big deal because the usual synchronizing breaker was an air blast with up to 4 sets of contacts to share the electric stress. Today, however, with the "improvement" to SF6 insulated breakers, there are generally only one set of contacts, and they are not rated to handle 2PU. This could result in catastrophic failure of the sync breaker, further complicating restoration. We did special training to try nd prevent this, but still a great challenge, none the less.
I work for our local natural gas utility, and winter blackouts also are cause for concern for us, like the air conditioning in the summer, if service is restored to a bunch of now cold homes it can cause demand surge on our pipelines and distribution networks. We have to coordinate with the electrical utilities during these events to make sure everything is executed in a manner that doesn't cause problems across multiple systems. I'd love to see you cover more about natural gas and pipeline infrastructure. There's a ton of fascinating things to learn that most don't realize. This is one of my favorite channels. Thanks!
In many older hydro power plants, the wicket gates could be opened at least once using large compressed air tanks to return from a total plant trip or black start. This was the case before battery banks and stand by generators and with older governors.
Going back to mechanical/analog days seems to be a reoccurring theme in modern times. It's almost like changing literally everything within a century can have unexpected technical difficulties.
I saw this comment and it made me smile, indeed the black start capable exiters in the original Rankine power station at Niagara falls were actually made up of tiny DC generators with permanent magnets with their own tiny pennstocks. All someone had to do was open a valve manually and they have the juice needed for exciting the main units. This was an old 25hz plant.
Perfect timing! I got covid and feel miserable but having a practical engineering video to pique my interest definitely helps.
Get well
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I Love most Practical Engineering videos but this is one of my favorites I have seen from Grady! Fascinating and one of the best explanations I have ever seen of the black start! What a great end to an amazing series.
In South Africa we have experienced 130+ days without power in 2022. Rolling blackouts , 2-4hrs at a time, 8-14hrs per day without electricity . 2023 is going to be much worse . Corruption and sabotage is the main cause .