Power Cut

[spread-tee]

Have you figured out the reason for the power cuts?
Round my way we have one every few years…

No, we used to have one outage typically once a year for only a minute or two. But now they are regularly occurring, typically once every two or three months and the power is sometimes out for hours. We have had cable faults in the local road because the road / pavement has been dug up at least 4 times over the past 2 years with a section of cable cut out and replaced. But the latest ones, did not result in any digging up anything.

We are in an area with a hell of a lot of house building going on so wondering if its something to do with connecting all the additional houses up as there might be reinforcing works going on in order to facilitate all the extra connections.

When I installed my latest whole house backup, I nearly did not bother thinking outages were too infrequent for it to be worth it, but now I am so glad I did.

Sounds like something faulty rather than upgrades or new connections, normally with them the DNOs can give you a bit of advanced warning??I bet your neighbours are looking at yours with envy.

Desp

[nowty]

Clock on the cooker was flashing this morning which suggested another power cut last night. I checked the SMA Sunny Island log and the power was off for about an hour overnight. Whilst I was looking at the log, the power went off again, its been off now for an hour so I have had to turn on my immersun manual boost to the hot water and storage heaters to reduce my own generation curtailment.

[nowty]

Power came back on after about an hour but has been up and down a few times since, the DNO's van has been down by the transformer all day. In the last hour its escalated with another van turning up and a digger and a load of barriers and signs. I spoke with the guys and they are waiting for some labour to turn up to start digging the corner of the road up so looks like another cable fault, I think that's now the 5th dig up in 2 years.

I'm purposely leaving my car charger plugged in to see how my system deals with it when my house goes offgrid.

[spread-tee]

Are you sure you're not shoving too much power into the grid and melting all the cables??

Desp

[nowty]

Are you sure you're not shoving too much power into the grid and melting all the cables??

Desp

My house is normally kinder to the grid as I am usually zero import / zero export, its as if I wasn't even here and my max export is limited to 3.68kW.

My max import could be a problem in winter, I'm not sure whats going to happen in the future when all 25 houses in the street have two EVs.

Last Xmas when Octopus was giving away 4 hours of free leccy.

[Stinsy]

Are you sure you're not shoving too much power into the grid and melting all the cables??

Desp

My house is normally kinder to the grid as I am usually zero import / zero export, its as if I wasn't even here and my max export is limited to 3.68kW.

My max import could be a problem in winter, I'm not sure whats going to happen in the future when all 25 houses in the street have two EVs.

Last Xmas when Octopus was giving away 4 hours of free leccy.

Did you get a temperature reading of your main fuse?

[nowty]

Did you get a temperature reading of your main fuse?

The 19kW+ was only for a few seconds to get the picture.

I find up to 14kW, no problem, slightly warm.

16kW Warm to hot.

18kW+ very hot circa 50 to 60 degrees with an infrared thermometer, I think the spec limit is about 70 degrees.

Thats why I changed to Octopus Go Faster (5hrs for 5.5p) as the 4 hour slot was too much power over too short an interval. 5 hours means I only need to go to around 14kW.

But with the second EV coming, oh dear, I might have to move to the new Octopus intelligence tariff and get 6 hours of 5p.

PS - Power was cut off at 5:30pm ish and the digging has commenced.

[nowty]

The newer iphone cameras are quite amazing as it was very dark when I took these but it makes it look like almost daylight.

10pm and the repair is continuing, latest outlook is 3am for the fix.




But Nowty Towers is still lighting the way.

[Mr Gus]

You are only meant to parade around the house naked with the curtains open when there is a power cut.
(Not when it's a power cut for everyone bar yourself)

[nowty]

I noticed someone half way down the street has moved into their camper van.