Power Plants

In a nutshell an inverter motor works like this …

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1) Grid power supplies single phase, 120 or 240 volt AC power at 60 hz

2) That power is run through diodes to create 120 volt or 240 volt direct current

3) A microprocessor connected to three sets of IGBTs (essentially high power transistors) switches them on an off to create three phase power at a variable frequency

4) The three phase, variable frequency AC electricity drives a three phase motor – no losses from shaded poles or starting coils – or coasting between the two poles

5) By varying the frequency of the AC, you vary the speed of the AC motor efficiently

6) Also, you can have smaller coils if you drive the motor at a higher frequency then gear the motor down for power and speed desired

NYS Electric Utility Service Territories Map

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This interactive map shows the Utility Service Territories in New York State, including that of National Grid, Rochester Gas and Electric, NYS Electric and Gas, Central Hudson Gas and Electric, Orange and Rockland Utilities, Long Island Power Authority, Consolidated Edison and municipal utilities.

Data Source: NYS Department of Public Service. https://data.ny.gov/Energy-Environment/NYS-Electric-Utility-Service-Territories/q5m9-rahr

How Do Substations Work?

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Untangling the various equipment you might see in an electrical substation.

This is a very interesting video. Substations do a lot more then just stepping down the voltage from high-voltage transmission lines. They carefully control the output voltage and frequency, bring together often multiple power lines feeding into the system, they can disconnect and connect lines for servicing and repair. In many ways, substations really are the brains of the local power grid.

Rural electricifican

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The other day driving past the hunting camps and rural homes up on the dirt roads around Gas Springs NY, I was a bit surprised how far the electric lines extended into this area to very remote farms and camps on dirt roads. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised – rural electricifican has extended to nearly all corners of our country – but it seems like in an era of solar power, batteries and inverters, to be incredibly expensive and wasteful to have run lines all that way out there.

Power Lines

While rural electricifican efforts got underway in the 1930s, many of the more remote farms and homes didn’t get electricity until the 1950s or even 1960s. It seems hard to imagine a modern dairy without electricity to run the pumps or coolers but many other farms certainly did. They had all kinds of belt driven equipment that often ran off of Blackstone and other primitive motors. The modern tractor PTO had yet to be standardized.