DIYbanter - View Single Post

wrote:
On Mon, 31 Oct 2005 17:14:58 GMT, "Pete C."
wrote:

The bottom line is that you can not kill a lineman by inadvertently back
feeding the mains. In order for the lineman to be killed he must also
not follow established procedures for his work.

Pete C.

The lineman issue is potentially a problem but the real thing that
keeps you from backfeeding the grid is the grid itself. When your tiny
little generator hits your neighbor's A/C units and whatever else they
still have on, your generator's breaker will trip. On my street there
are about a dozen houses fed from a common secondary set and 4
transformers, all in parallel. It would take a very big genset to even
bump that line. Unless the primary is broken on your dead end street,
very close to your house, you will also be trying to feed all the
other streets.

But maybe the primary *is* broken on your dead end street. Or there are
several breaks in the line and the only thing still connected to your
house is the transformer. You don't know what the state of the
distribution lines are, so you can't rely on them to stall the generator
if you forget to open the mains. So you need another failsafe.

-Bob