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"The power
went out briefly Tuesday morning, with surges affecting service
throughout much of southern and central Ontario. Lights flickered
momentarily around 6:20am, though most power systems quickly
returned to normal".
So what exactly happened?
"It appears a
capacitor bank failed. They're used to store electricity and the
system is designed to automatically isolate the problem and switch
to an alternate source. That caused a drop in voltage, the
resulting blip and the ripple effect across the province and as
far away as Quebec.
Few full power
outages were reported, but surges were noted as far away as
London, Hamilton, Peterborough, Niagara Falls, as well as in parts
of northern Ontario".
"Our system is
designed to isolate those types of problems when they occur, so we
were able to switch very quickly to an alternate power supply, so
that's why you would've experienced a blip in the power."
"In Toronto, traffic lights were reported out at various
locations, slowing traffic at the start of the morning rush. The
subway slowed to a crawl for a time after signals went out
underground.
Surge protectors are a
necessity during power spikes"
IEEE Std 1100-1999
From the IEEE Emerald Book:
IEEE Recommended Practice for Powering and Grounding Electronic
Equipment
3.4.3 Surge
protection
Surges can have many effects on equipment,
ranging from no detectable effect to complete
destruction...electronic devices can have their operation upset
before hard failure occurs. The semiconductor junctions of
electronic devices are particularly susceptible to progressive
deterioration...few solid-state devices can tolerate much more than
twice their normal rating. Furthermore, data processing
equipment can be affected by fast changes in voltage with
relatively small amplitude compared to the hardware-damaging over
voltages...For large surge currents; this diversion is best
accomplished in several stages. The first diversion should
be performed at the entrance to the building with a
second protective device at the power panel or at the terminals of
a connected load, or both...
Power Surges Can Fry Your Sensitive Electronics
Toronto Hydro Recommends Surge Protection Equipment
IEEE Recommended
Practice for Powering and Grounding Electronic Equipment
When Do You Need
Transient Voltage Surge Suppression (TVSS)?
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