On Jul 12, 11:13*am, bud-- wrote:
On 7/11/2011 4:21 PM, dpb wrote:





On 7/11/2011 1:55 PM, DerbyDad03 wrote:
We had a power outage last night. It was in the mid-80's and I'm sure
that most of us had our AC units just sitting there waiting to spin up
as soon as the power came back on - I know I did.

So how is that initial power requirement handled by the power
company?

Even in a relatively small outage like we had, the initial demand as
everybody's AC units, cable boxes, lights, pool filters, fans, fridges
& freezers, etc. all come on at the exact same moment must be huge.

How does the power company soften the impact on their equipment?

Generally first by staging the return of any larger sections then that's
what "spinning reserve" is for for the makeup.

Sounds good for a really large area.

Most power restores are probably not much power relative to the capacity
of the grid.

Motors and incandescents briefly draw about 6x normal current when they
are turned on.





There will be some voltage sag and short term redistribution within the
local grid as well.- Hide quoted text -

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I usually notice a fair amount of flickering when our local elect co
restores power, as other sections are added onlne I suppose.