I have a friend who is a software engineer. He is insisting that it will be a simple thing to "hardwire" a manual overide to restore electricity in the event of a grid falure. I understand from reading this forum that manual overides are not going to happen. However, not understanding these things I need to know why in a way that I can explain to him. Could any one give some reasons why Manual overides are no longer possible? Thanks Steve

-- Anonymous, October 13, 1998

Answers

Hardwiring anyhting in a power system requires a lot of time, effort, and care. All of the electrical system I am aware of have some form or manual override built into them as a matter of safety already. But a power grid is not the same thing as a power generation station or a switching station or a transformer. The grid is really a massive collection of production and delivery systems. The notion of having a single manual override for such a complex system is not really sensible. The notion of having a multitude of people available to use manual overrides when and where appropriate is sensible and is in the plans of many power system providers.

-- Anonymous, October 14, 1998

You can manually reclose breakers if you have the staff available to man the major substations or if your SCADA/EMS system is operational and is providing information on what tripped and why. You don't want to reclose into a "real" fault and damage equipment. Not every switch is remotely controllable and not every substation will be staffed.

Manual operation of a generation station would be much more difficult. The process is very fast and many sensors are provided for limit checking and safety shutdowns. There could be many sensors to jumper with many safety issues to address before attempting to bypass the failure.

-- Anonymous, October 14, 1998