Potential power outages this winter
- Thread starter JamesH85
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Associate
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Reminds me that I need to replace the batteries in my UPS. I've got a 1400W APC unit that had a tantrum because the batteries developed a fault but never got around to changing them 
I work from home full-time, one of the Level 1 outtages would be between 9am - 12pm for me.
Maybe I work for a nicer company, but they wouldn't have a problem if you can't WFH during a planned national powercut for 3hrs.
Also if you need internet access to WFH and you're relying hot-spotting, then you need to hope the mobile networks are prepared as well.
If you're in an office how many normal company premises are set-up for long term working during a powercut, if they have UPS and generators they're there to allow systems to be shut down safely and for people to get out of the buildings.
If people are worried about powercut effecting things like fish tanks then they should have back-up power already to cope with the unplanned outages caused by things like a digger going through a cable.
We had a cable problem here a few months ago, they managed to re-route the power for most homes, but some were off for about 7 hours.
Internet should still work provided you can power your router.
And the company I work for are a bunch of *****.
Soldato
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the fishtank........ 3 hrs you wont need to worry about temperature or your skimmer not working..... water movement may be an issue to keep your 02 levels up and your live rock happy ... if it were me (back in the day i did used to have a twin tank (4.5x2x2 foot marine tank with sump) i would probably look to get a battery operated pump to keep the water flowing but would not worry about spending loads on heating it for the sake of 3 hrs. hell, when i sold my fish set up, i am near cambridge and i sold it to someone on......... isle of man or isle of white - i cant remember which - but either way it was a fair old trek away, AND i had stripped everythign down and put in buckets which must have took at least an hr............ it would definitely have been longer than 3 hrs down time as well as far far more disruptive than just losing power and yet all went fine with no loss of life.
(I wont lie.........i was a bit worried for the live rock etc but it was fine)
if you are talking a bog standard tropical tank i would worry even less personally.
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I spent 29 years without the Internet, let alone 3 hours.
And guess what? I survived
A lot of landline phones now are VoIP. Next you'll be saying rely on your mobile, then what happens if its service goes down and it can. But then are the fiber cabinets powered during the 3 hour stints? Even if you've gotten a UPS for your router.
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How are you going to power the street cabinet? Pretty sure they need power.
Soldato
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As I understand it about half of France's nuclear plants have been off for long term maintenance for most of this year. The UK to Europe interconnectors have been largely on outflow to Europe for most of the year when it's normally the other way. France's nukes have been backing up the European grids of it's neighbours for years and now they're not there it's causing chaos.
I believe it's a reactor type fault issue which is why it's taking so long to resolve if it was an electrical or turbine issue it would be over by now.
edit: annoying typo
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Or even back to the exchange. All exchanges aren't the same.
Caporegime
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I found this post about BT type broadband which says (I think) the network would still be running https://community.bt.com/t5/Archive-Staging/Using-internet-during-power-cut/td-p/1766760 and you'd just need to power the modem/router.
I'm on Virgin, I don't hold out much hope they'd do the same!
That's a bit of a problem
Associate
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Just had 2 power cuts in the morning today only 2 minutes long i hope this is not starting now.
So the cab's should be okay and I would hope most exchanges would have a contingency to a mains outage, but I doubt that's the case for all beyond UPS for surge protection and safe shutdown.
I love the “It is not a ‘car battery’ but is specifically designed to fit into our cabinets and is not something that could be readily adapted to power anything else.”, in other words "please don't nick it" !
Soldato
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I find it weird we as a people just accept 'the news' that there will be power outages........if I ran the power companies, id simply plan for them to not happen and make changes to avoid them...........isn't discussing future events as if they will happen all abit odd ?
How about just make sure it doesn't happen?
It's as if they are trying to make electric a rare product to drive up the price or something.
How about just make sure it doesn't happen?
It's as if they are trying to make electric a rare product to drive up the price or something.
Hasn't this country shown it's all about spending as little money as possible while having no contingency plans? After all, don't we have a proven record when it starts hitting the fan the country runs about like headless chickens?
Look at some of the bad winters when we got rid of the snow vehicles and grit thinking it'll never happen again. Lessons will be learned and all that.
Soldato
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I don't think we will have power cuts. but it's worth knowing what will happen just in case
