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From: lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein)
Newsgroups: net.misc
Subject: The power grid
Message-ID: <304@vortex.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 21-Apr-84 02:44:50 EST
Article-I.D.: vortex.304
Posted: Sat Apr 21 02:44:50 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 22-Apr-84 08:35:49 EST
Organization: Vortex Technology, Los Angeles
Lines: 22

I don't know how it's set up in Canada, but here in the U.S. I believe
that the entire grid is synchronized in terms of line frequency.  There
was a region of Texas that refused to join in as late as a few years
ago, but I think that even they may have sych'd with the rest of the
grid by now.

While load shedding programs help to avoid massive power outages, the
interconnected grid can still cause interesting effects -- like the
two power "burps" that occurred within a couple of weeks of each
other out here fairly recently.  Both were triggered by a failure
in the S.F. Bay area, and both burps resulted in disruptions through
about 4 western states.  Most areas only had a cutoff of a second
or two, but a few areas were shed to protect the grid and had
outages up to an hour or so.

[Load shedding is one of the means now employed to help prevent
massive, prolonged blackouts (like the great blackouts of the Northeast)
in situations of power disruption.  By selectively (and automatically)
blacking out certain areas, the grid can be protected from having
the full load being drawn from fewer and fewer running power plants.]

--Lauren--