Voltage Reduction Test February 7 (Ontario only)

[Giles Orr]

On 31 January 2012 11:15, Walter Dnes <waltdnes-SLHPyeZ9y/tg9hUCZPvPmw at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>  This only applies to Ontario.  From
> http://www.ieso.ca/imoweb/news/newsItem.asp?newsItemID=5933
>
>> The IESO will perform a voltage reduction test on Tuesday,
>> February 7, 2012. Voltage reductions are tested every 18 months
>> to simulate emergency actions available to the IESO to maintain
>> system reliability.  There will be a three percent voltage reduction
>> test between 9:00 and 10:00 EST, followed by a five percent test
>> between 13:00 and 14:00 EST.  The IESO will measure the electricity
>> load reduction resulting from these voltage changes. The results
>> of these tests will be used to analyze and update our emergency
>> preparedness procedures.  Electricity consumers should be unaffected
>> as voltages will remain within industry standards specified for
>> equipment used by residential and commercial consumers. Consumers
>> with questions or concerns about the test should contact their
>> local distribution company. A list of local distribution companies
>> is available at http://www.ieso.ca/findutility.  More information
>> about voltage reductions is available on the IESO website at
>> http://www.ieso.ca/voltagereduction or by contacting IESO Customer
>> Relations.
>
>  We get to find out how good our power supplies and UPS systems are.

The distribution voltages that IESO deals in are likely in the
hundreds of kiloVolts range (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Electricity_grid_simple-_North_America.svg
).  The amount of "smart" electrical equipment between your wall
socket and IESO's point of origin would suggest that the chance of us
seeing a voltage change would be about nil.  If you work at a company
that has its own substation (Google, Amazon ...), you might notice.

-- 
Giles
http://www.gilesorr.com/
gilesorr-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org
--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://gtalug.org/
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists