Bob Engelhardt wrote:



BUT, it seems to me that as a _load_ the power-less mains coming into
your house look like a dead short! I.e., the combined loads of all your
neighbors as well as the load back through your local pole pig. In
which case your generator breaker would blow in about a millisecond.


Probably significantly longer, especially if your voltage regulator
isn't very stiff. Essentially you voltage doesn't rise, and your gen
set acts much more like a constant current generator rather than
constant voltage.

The chance of a lineman touching the line AND being grounded during that
ms would be very small.
He doesn't need to be grounded per se, just touching both sides of a
splice.

And even if he were, the momentary shock is
unlikely to be fatal or traumatic.
And you base this on what? The fact that relatively low CURRENTS are
all that is needed to be fatal. Or the fact that a lot of line man
injuries are from falling after being shocked.


The exception, of course, is is the power outage is in your drop. I.e.,
isolated from your neighbors.

Strictly my opinion of course. I'm sure there are those who will
disagree :-)

Strongly


Bob

jk