Having re-read thru the older posts relevant to rolling blackouts - it seems like a few more questions are seriously in order. To begin with:

1) Are procedures/schedules/charts & miscellaineous other sliding variables REGARDING 'rolling blackouts' a part of the regular (emergency) routine maintained & reviewed by each&every electrical utility & distributor? And shared between them? Some kind of standard operating procedures?

2) If/when it were ascertained that this practice would have to POSSIBLY be incorporated for a -period- of time... How would the general public and businesses be notified of same? (Shouldn't everyone be expecting to get a little something in their monthly bill by say - november - calmly outlining this REMOTE possibility, describing how&why it would commence, and HOW everyone would be notified PRIOR to same??) 3) Is this being totally covered in upper the echelon's back rooms?

I mean, the big area BETWEEN mostly-*UP* or mostly-*DOWN*... for extended weeks, months. Does this this messy middle zone have a name? Seems like we're not hearing enough about 'what-if's' that cover that.

Wouldn't it be PRUDENT to assume that there COULD be serious lengthy problems? or>>

4) Am I missing an important stage in between Grid-up* or Grid-down* BESIDES 'rolling blackouts'?? Some kind of heavily-reduced level, with no rolling?

If so, - then HOW would THAT extremely-reduced usage-level be ENFORCED?!? (yeh right, no hairdryers,etc?)

Or is it just that *they* keep thinking only a couple days (as opposed to several weeks....?)

Isn't there a TINY logical CHANCE that the Grid could be a real mess in various places for quite a long time - many weeks/months?? Making most of these questions - worthy of serious consideration??

5)Wouldn't many critical businesses (water,tel-coms,industrial plants,etc.) have to know way of time - ABOUT rolling blackouts - in order to prepare to actually work WITH IT??

- A workable description how to function at reduced capacity loads - and scheduled cycles of limited daily availability according to specific zones, and so on.

I mean, Rick/Bonnie/everyone - isn't this the kind of thing that many VITAL businesses should be incorporating into their contigency planning outlines very soon!? Like now?

(will sit on my hands -mum- if folks want to volley this around. thanks for your consideration. sorry if off-base, overly redundant seeking clarity, too long.. - I know my tech-terms aren't perfect...but are we getting the overall GIST of it... SOMEWHAT accurately, or not??? help?)

-- Anonymous, July 02, 1999

Answers

We are longtime lurkers in this forum. And are very concerned & confused about this specific topic. And much more...

Can anyone (please) elaborate upon these questions?

[If the person posting the questions is too controversial - would someone very knowledgeable - please - create a new link addressing many of her questions, in a separate thread, minus the personality involved?]

It seems to us, that these issues of timing & overall security are not being sufficiently addressed & communicated - regarding all the questions she posed above.

We are feeling very aggravated by questions like this.

-- Anonymous, July 02, 1999

until someone else jumps in to add or correct me, I'll throw this out:

I am in the Chicago area.

Last summer ComEd came VERY close to resorting to "rolling blackouts" due to their inability to generate enough power during long stretches of weather in the 90-100 degree range.

Although they did not have to actually do this, the mere mention of it got Mayor Daly in a big snit.

ComEd had never mentioned to the City of Chicago that they even HAD a rolling blackout scenario.

When da Mayor demanded a rolling blackout schedule or map, he "eventually" received an indecipherable (except by engineers) list of numbers that apparently just refered to substations or such that would be shut off for "some" period of time and then turned back on and others shut off, hence the "rolling" effect.

It took quite a while to translate the "map" to something that meant anything to the "consumer". ComEds "rolling blackout" scenario apparently had no connection with what was connected to the substation that was shut off, police stations, schools, fire depts, hospitals, etc etc.

so the answer to #1 is probably: Yes, they have some procedure, but good luck getting your hands on it, and good luck trying to figure out what it means.

#2- Notification of customers. Customers were "warned" through the media that "rolling blackouts" might have to instituted if we didn't all conserve electricity. other than that, there would be no warning.

#3 you didn't label this one, I'm guessing you are asking about the name of the "middle ground" that would be BROWNOUT.

In my opinion a brownout is worse than a blackout or rolling blackouts. Severe equipment damage can be done with extended brownout periods.

A brownout is sort of like if half the pumping stations at the water utility went down.

If just a few people used water at one time, you'd get normal pressure.

If the normal number of people tried to use water all at the same time, the pressure would drop by half. Your washer would take twice as long to fill up, same with your toilet , etc etc.

With electricity, if the plant is only generating (x) amount of power and the normal usage is (2x), then something has to give.

What you'd get is a brownout, lower levels of voltage, it would vary from area to area. Lights would be dim, things wouldn't work right, if at all, motors wouldn't start, refrigerators probably wouldn't run, depending on how low the voltage gets.

There is no "enforcement" that I know of. Everyone has to voluntarily cut back... think they will? nyaaaahh.

#5- I believe the Electric utilities offer lower rates to large businesses (maybe not the water utility) in exchange for the right to ask them to "shed their loads" first so they can maintain a semblence of order. So they probably WOULD ask (or TELL) some or all of their largest industrial users that they were "running low on generating capacity" or something and thost large users would have to take the day off.

Find some of the largest Electric consumers in your area,industrial plant, whatever, and see if you can find out if they get reduced rates in exchange for having to shed their loads to prevent Brownouts or rolling blackouts.

anyways, this is just what I know from Chicago. this does not necessarily apply to the rest of the country, or the world, and I may have botched it up.

but what the heck, noone else has really piped in yet...

-- Anonymous, July 02, 1999

We're very concerned;

To understand about load curtailment plans, check out this thread: http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=000UHi. Especially helpful are posts there by Bonnie Camp, Rick Cowles, and Art&Science@protrelay.com.

Load curtailment has several, incremental responses, most of which you would never even be aware happened.

Each utility has their own load curtailment plan. Rolling outages need not be coordinated between utilities. The last line of defense against excessive load is frequency load shedding, which is coordinated and discussed between utilities.

-- Anonymous, July 02, 1999