[EAS] Rochester Station Offers to Charge Cell Phones

[Bill Ruck]

I don't think that is the correct story.

Utilities run their controls on 120 VDC fed from a bank of 
batteries.  They don't need utility power to make switches.  Big 
switches like what you use for 345 kV generally are air operated.  A 
120 VDC solenoid trips, air pressure shuts it off.  Depending on how 
the system is wired it might take utility power or local generator 
power to run the compressor to switch it back.

There are many stories about generator day tanks fed from utility 
power instead of generator power.  When downtown San Francisco had a 
big gas leak and the fire department ordered all utility power shut 
off KCBS learned that their rooftop generator transfer pump from 
underground fuel tanks ran off of utility power.  So they were 
decanting diesel into 5 gallon water jugs and running it up to the 
roof with the one elevator that ran off their generator until the FD 
found out about it, had a major hissy fit, and shut them down.

During the '89 quake TV Channel 20's generator at Sutro Tower also 
had its transfer pump connected to utility not generator power.  This 
generator also fed the four FM stations.

Pacific Bell had backup generator turbines.  After the '89 quake they 
started automatically, came up, transferred, overloaded, and shut 
down.  The NOC got alarms, manually started the turbines, came up to 
speed, transferred, overloaded, and shut down.  These are air start 
turbines and you only get TWO starts from the air tank.  That's why 
San Francisco fell off of the telephone network that night as that CO 
was the tandem office.  Management had declared  the load was "too 
critical" to test.

Ooops.

That is why I always test generators and transfer switches by pulling 
the main breaker.  If it isn't right you can always return utility power.

Bill Ruck
San Francisco

At 12:39 PM 3/13/2017, you wrote:
>. . . .

>Had a garage close to our  station. Even though it was on the 
>grounds of a power plant, they lost power to the building. They had 
>no backup power, and ended up using a cutting torch to get the 
>garage door open so their emergency vehicles could roll. (The 
>station was fed from two power grids, one of them straight out of 
>the power plant, and we had half a second of power outage in 12.5 years!)
>
>Rochester is connected to the 345 kV New York State Power Authority 
>backbone, which runs from the Niagra Power Project to NYC, and hits 
>all the major cities along the way. They were ordered by NYSPA to 
>cut their connection with the 345 kV backbone during the ice storm. 
>Rumor has it they were unable to do so, or experienced considerable 
>delay because there was no local 120 volt power available to throw the switch.