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Message
re: So the mayor of Lake Charles wasn't warned Entergy was about to shut down its power
Posted on 2/17/21 at 1:21 pm to SlowFlowPro
Posted on 2/17/21 at 1:21 pm to SlowFlowPro
Regulatory compliance agencies are responsible for telling power companies when to shed load and how much to shed. These are usually forecast a few hours in advance. Sometimes they are correct, and sometimes they are not. They do not know until it is necessary to do so in real time. Power companies are often given 15-20 minute notices that they need to drop x amount of MW. Power companies will not call state and local officials and tell them. Power companies will, however, have a list of feeders that can be dropped for the specific load needed. These should not include water plants, hospitals, and places used for emergency shelter. That is Entergy’s failure. Not the lack of communication.
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Posted on 2/17/21 at 1:22 pm to mmmmmbeeer
quote:
So say commercial power fails, generator fires up, and it takes 10-20 seconds for the generator to carry the load...there would be a string of batteries in place to carry the load during that 10-20 second transfer.
Are you saying this is typical in water distribution systems, specifically? Because it would surprise me if they have the ability to run their water pumps on battery backup for any period of time, but that’s not my exact area of expertise.
My assumption is that they probably go directly to either diesel/nat gas driven backup pumps or to some kind of big turbine generators. Under normal circumstances it’s probably not a big deal if the pumps are down while they swap over because every Tom, Dick, & Harry doesn’t have their faucet open (or a busted line) during a hurricane. So the water towers can manage the downtime.
Posted on 2/17/21 at 1:27 pm to lostinbr
quote:
difficulty imagining is exactly how much added consumption there is from those dripping faucets. Whenever I drip a faucet during cold weather, I literally turn it down to a drip. The point is to give the water somewhere to go if there’s an expanding ice plug. But the more I think about it, I’m sure there are people that literally turn the faucet on at like 50% and leave it.
Most people are turning on 75% of more of their faucets at 50% capacity, just to be safe.
If only people understood how to do it right.
The other thing is, this is on top of the normal demand and the demand being from pretty much every citizen. Systems aren't designed to have everyone at home at once, showering, washing clothes, washing dishes all on tip of letting the faucets dip.
Posted on 2/17/21 at 1:28 pm to lostinbr
quote:
Are you saying this is typical in water distribution systems, specifically?
Negative. Have no experience with water and the system's ability to compensate for a short pump shutdown you mentioned could be the way they mitigate the transfer risks.
Posted on 2/17/21 at 1:34 pm to diat150
quote:
How often do they know ahead of time that power is going out?
They don't, but there usually isn't twice the normal demand that you have now. We don't design systems to handle one off events like this that happen once a decade.
quote:
Why weren’t the generators setup to automatically swap over?
Because they aren't. They should be and be on back up battery power for the time it takes for the switch to happen. I assume this is because it's just being rebuilt after the hurricanes destroyed it.
quote:
Why weren’t all of the towers/storage kept completely full around the clock during this event to give plenty of time to handle an emergency?
Ummm they were. Did you miss the lart where they are experiencing twice normla peak demand? Again we don't design systems to handle one offs like this as the cost to benifit ratio isn't there.
quote:
Most of these systems are underfunded and poorly ran and are just a mistake or two from a disaster.
That we can agree on. But that is a different issue all together and you should be screaming at state and federal authorities to stop spending on dumbass wars and sending our money over sees and to spend the money on infrastructure.
The money spent in the Iraq War alone could have had us a brand new electrical grid across the country. The money sent to places like Pakistan and Afghanistan could have had upgraded the water systems across the country. Etc etc etc
Posted on 2/17/21 at 1:36 pm to lostinbr
quote:
My assumption is that they probably go directly to either diesel/nat gas driven backup pumps or to some kind of big turbine generators. Under normal circumstances it’s probably not a big deal if the pumps are down while they swap over because every Tom, Dick, & Harry doesn’t have their faucet open (or a busted line) during a hurricane. So the water towers can manage the downtime.
Your assumption is correct. Very rarely are any forms of DC power back up utilized in municipal systems.
Posted on 2/17/21 at 1:41 pm to SlowFlowPro
I call Bull SHITE with all parties involved here.
Posted on 2/17/21 at 1:42 pm to lsu777
quote:
Because they aren't. They should be and be on back up battery power for the time it takes for the switch to happen. I assume this is because it's just being rebuilt after the hurricanes destroyed it.
I havent seen a system designed to run on battery backup. It would take a massive amount of batteries and equipment to run the size pumps that are typically used at well sites or transfer stations. Now the control system may be on battery backup, but the pump itself wont be. The control system should have let them know instantly when they lost power in a city the size of Lake Charles.
Posted on 2/17/21 at 1:45 pm to SlowFlowPro
quote:
I don't think that they're automatic and the issue was the time between the power shut off and generators coming on line. If we had been warned, I'm sure that a lot of the prep could have been done so the time lag wouldn't have been nearly as bad.
Yeah, I have a hard time removing the majority of blame from those operating the generators...especially given the VERY KNOWN LIKELIHOOD of a power outage ahead of time.
Feel free to explain it, but we should be talking a matter of minutes even if they have to react with no advanced warning. How could that lack of advanced warning explain the water issues?
Posted on 2/17/21 at 1:46 pm to diat150
quote:
I havent seen a system designed to run on battery backup. It would take a massive amount of batteries and equipment to run the size pumps that are typically used at well sites or transfer stations. Now the control system may be on battery backup, but the pump itself wont be. The control system should have let them know instantly when they lost power in a city the size of Lake Charles.
Yea most don't. We have them in the plants big enough to allow pumps to run and be safely shutdown, like 15-30 min backup. A proper system would have enough to run it to provide instant backup power while the generators come online to full power.
quote:
The control system should have let them know instantly when they lost power in a city the size of Lake Charles.
It did, but they didn't have people manning and it's not automatic yet since the hurricane. Roads were iced and they couldn't get people there fast enough to stop the towers from being drained. Double peak demand tends to not help too.
Posted on 2/17/21 at 2:45 pm to LSU Coyote
quote:
When we got rolling blackouts in Thibodaux, they sent us messages 2-3hrs after cutting power.
Entergy just notified me that my power will be back on by the end of the day.
I have had electricity through the entirety of this event.
Thank god Entergy runs nuclear power plants better than a text message notification service.
Posted on 2/17/21 at 2:48 pm to SlowFlowPro
quote:
I don't think that they're automatic and the issue was the time between the power shut off and generators coming on line. If we had been warned, I'm sure that a lot of the prep could have been done so the time lag wouldn't have been nearly as bad. I don't believe that you just turn on generators of this size. All the water drained out of the system in that time lag, and they can't rebuild pressure b/c everyone still has their faucets open (like I said earlier, it's a Tragedy of the Commons situation in real time).
More likely tBoy had his head up his arse and did not do his job.
How often do you suppose water system admins get a heads up a power failure is immanent?
Posted on 2/17/21 at 2:52 pm to cave canem
quote:
How often do you suppose water system admins get a heads up a power failure is immanent?
this wasn't a power failure that popped up randomly
this was a planned outage that happened intentionally
also it happened when LC was using 2x max load
Posted on 2/17/21 at 3:04 pm to SlowFlowPro
Entergy shouldn’t have dropped the feeder that fed the plant. They should have known where that plant was fed from (substation, feeder) as part of their load shed plan.
Posted on 2/17/21 at 3:05 pm to mmmmmbeeer
quote:
I find it hard to believe that anytime LC water experiences a commercial power failure, the water system just dies and loses pressure. They must've had a tertiary component that failed.
I think they took a relatively LOOOOONG time to get the generators running, most likely due to incompetence, and they are trying to blame it on the lack of notice.
It doesn't hold water (no pun intended) IMO.
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