I’m back after almost three weeks in California at the McKinney fire. We took our large generator back to Northern California to supply power while the grid gets rebuilt after the fire. September 2020 we went down when the Slater Butte fire destroyed the transmission lines to a small town. This time it is to supply a many miles long distribution line that had been separated from its source by the fire. We lost about 85-90 homes in the middle of the long single phase run. There were still 90 customers with no way to get power to them but generation. This presented a problem that we have discussed for the last few years. Our generators make three phase power, this was a single phase load. This is a problem that the grid handles pretty well. As long as the grid sees a balanced load it runs smoothly, but when there is imbalance it can handle some. Our generator however likes balance, the engine has to push over the highest load. The imbalance can get the generator to chase itself inside causing some nasty issues. To carry this single phase load we provided a substantial three phase load with a resistance load bank and hid our smaller single phase load on top. Our engineers are brilliant! It is working perfectly and the generator is happy. I have passed the torch to other members of our team and returned home knowing our generator is in good hands. The race is on to restore the power lines! Now it is time to catch up on sleep.
Andy

 

Welcome back, sir

 

It's good to see you back on the forum and to know you're safe and sound, Andy. Go get some sleep. You sure as hell earned it.

 

That's an insane amount of work! Glad you're home and able to get some rest. Kudos on sciencing your issues out