Local power cuts that don't make the news
Discussion
For the past year or so, relatively brief localised power cuts have happened with annoying and increasing regularity. They don't usually make the local news so don't register. This could be just one isolated situation in the SW unless other PHers have also noticed similar outages becoming more common in different parts of the country. PH is one way to find out. I started noting dates and times from June, but didn't log events lasting less than 2 mins which often happen close to the hour at 1700 or 1800. Today's was 100 mins from approx 1330 to 1510. Four dates are currently logged, 01 June, 03 July, 06 July, 13 Aug with durations from 15 mins to 3.5 hours. For over 20 years I don't recall anything like the current frequency (npi).
Pretty rare around here (Midlands) and nominally in the town.
Last outage was a couple of months ago when the gas contractors dug up a power cable by mistake.
I run power monitoring on servers here and even power disturbance is quite rare.
ETA: I assume if it is an outage of more than a few minutes you are logging it with National Grid? Easy to do on their automated system. They usually know the cause before you phone.
Ring 105
or
https://powercuts.nationalgrid.co.uk/how-to-report...
Last outage was a couple of months ago when the gas contractors dug up a power cable by mistake.
I run power monitoring on servers here and even power disturbance is quite rare.
ETA: I assume if it is an outage of more than a few minutes you are logging it with National Grid? Easy to do on their automated system. They usually know the cause before you phone.
Ring 105
or
https://powercuts.nationalgrid.co.uk/how-to-report...
Edited by No ideas for a name on Wednesday 13th August 17:05
We're in Torbay on a 1980's built estate. We have a very localised significant (road up 12-24 hour) powercut at least every 18 months, if not every 12. And minor interruptions for a few hours every year at least.
The cause I am told is down to the joints in the cables being encased in a resin of some sort which over the years becomes brittle and then cracks with ground movement allowing moisture into the joint causing it to fault.
The answer is dig it up and rejoin the cable, which they have now done at 4 points in our cul-de-sac. Each time power off for at least a day if not 2 with generators going in the road etc
Some times its wider and affects 100 or so properties, last month it is was several hundered.
The cause I am told is down to the joints in the cables being encased in a resin of some sort which over the years becomes brittle and then cracks with ground movement allowing moisture into the joint causing it to fault.
The answer is dig it up and rejoin the cable, which they have now done at 4 points in our cul-de-sac. Each time power off for at least a day if not 2 with generators going in the road etc
Some times its wider and affects 100 or so properties, last month it is was several hundered.
A couple of weeks ago my ring main circuit kept tripping during the late evening. I went around the house doing the usual unplugging/fault finding but couldn't pin it down to anything specific.
So I resigned myself to doing something about it in the morning after pricing up a replacement modern RCCB breaker before heading to bed thinking that the 30+ year old breaker was perhaps starting to age.
Next morning all was good and has been ever since, so I've paused any further action unless there's a repeat of tripping.
I happened to mention this to a friend who lives ten minutes away who said their house behaved in exactly the same way on that night. A brief ask around our respective neighbours suggests the whole area suffered identical symptoms.
(SE Hants)
So I resigned myself to doing something about it in the morning after pricing up a replacement modern RCCB breaker before heading to bed thinking that the 30+ year old breaker was perhaps starting to age.
Next morning all was good and has been ever since, so I've paused any further action unless there's a repeat of tripping.
I happened to mention this to a friend who lives ten minutes away who said their house behaved in exactly the same way on that night. A brief ask around our respective neighbours suggests the whole area suffered identical symptoms.
(SE Hants)
Had one a few years ago, rang up to report it, expecting them to say it’s xyz and we expect power back by such a time.
Nope, they informed me that it wasn’t monitored at the local substation and I was the only one who’d reported it - I guess about 40 properties affected? So always report it, otherwise you could be without power for hours.
Nope, they informed me that it wasn’t monitored at the local substation and I was the only one who’d reported it - I guess about 40 properties affected? So always report it, otherwise you could be without power for hours.
It would be nice if they had to publish open data about these occurrences. We had a succession of power glitches this morning at 0545 that tripped some RCDs here and most annoyingly set off someone's burglar alarm that needs a new backup battery in it. It rang for 20 minutes... there have been three of these power glitch episodes so far this year.
Our previous house on the other side of Reading didn't seem to suffer as much as this one.
Not noticed any particular increase in recent years but we do get occasional power cuts. Sometimes just for a few hours but on occasion it's been off for several days (9 I think was the longest in CL recent years) but I just see it as pretty normal when you're served by overhead lines in a windy place with lots of trees.
Don't bother with a generator but do have woodburners, cooker and lighting that all work without power so no major hardship even mid winter.
Forest in rural Aberdeenshire.
Don't bother with a generator but do have woodburners, cooker and lighting that all work without power so no major hardship even mid winter.
Forest in rural Aberdeenshire.
outnumbered said:
It would be nice if they had to publish open data about these occurrences. We had a succession of power glitches this morning at 0545 that tripped some RCDs here and most annoyingly set off someone's burglar alarm that needs a new backup battery in it. It rang for 20 minutes... there have been three of these power glitch episodes so far this year.
Our previous house on the other side of Reading didn't seem to suffer as much as this one.
Your DNO (probably SSEN) has a live powercut map.Our previous house on the other side of Reading didn't seem to suffer as much as this one.
I'm really surprised at the frequency of some of these power cuts.
Most of you must be on very poor rural networks or similar.
I live on the edge of a small town and have seen one phase go, so about a third of the properties on the street for 30 minutes. Before that it must be twenty years since I can last recall a power cut.
For work recently I looked at a load of reliability data from ukpn, for supplies from bigger substations. I was shocked how reliable they were. Most secondary substations (the ones that actually supply houses, at the end of your street), have two supplies from the upstream primary substation. As each supply is so unlikely to fail concurrently, reliability is very high. There are obviously single points of failure downstream of that before your house, and there's still plenty of old/rural electrical networks with overhead lines etc that have far worse reliability than modern underground cables, ring circuits etc.
Ypu can probably find out info about the faults. Every dno has some kind of open data portal and they are encouraged to share more and more information.
Most of you must be on very poor rural networks or similar.
I live on the edge of a small town and have seen one phase go, so about a third of the properties on the street for 30 minutes. Before that it must be twenty years since I can last recall a power cut.
For work recently I looked at a load of reliability data from ukpn, for supplies from bigger substations. I was shocked how reliable they were. Most secondary substations (the ones that actually supply houses, at the end of your street), have two supplies from the upstream primary substation. As each supply is so unlikely to fail concurrently, reliability is very high. There are obviously single points of failure downstream of that before your house, and there's still plenty of old/rural electrical networks with overhead lines etc that have far worse reliability than modern underground cables, ring circuits etc.
Ypu can probably find out info about the faults. Every dno has some kind of open data portal and they are encouraged to share more and more information.
I’m Surrey / Kent / Sussex border. A few months ago we had a spate of power cuts over a period of a few months.
Previously it was rare for the power to go off and it’s been fine for a few weeks at least. It was frequent and long enough for me to consider getting a generator. See what the winter brings.
Previously it was rare for the power to go off and it’s been fine for a few weeks at least. It was frequent and long enough for me to consider getting a generator. See what the winter brings.
We live in a semi-rural area and years ago the power used to go off quite a lot - noteably was off all Christmas Day once. We also used to get a lot of glitches that we didn't particularly notice but-the fridge freezer's water dispenser light would say on if there'd be slightest drop and the Panasonic DECT phone would forget the time if the base station lost power momentarily.
I've no idea what changed, but, touch wood, not had a cut for years. Did have 273V one night - UPS on my NAS was freaking out. Called the power disti and they wanted to come to house but I was going to bed. Was still same in the morning then at 9AM it sent back to normal.
What's gone mad around us is the water going off - eight times now in 24/25. It's usually during the night so getting up to no water isn't funny. We've learned to fill the kettle up before retiring.
I've no idea what changed, but, touch wood, not had a cut for years. Did have 273V one night - UPS on my NAS was freaking out. Called the power disti and they wanted to come to house but I was going to bed. Was still same in the morning then at 9AM it sent back to normal.
What's gone mad around us is the water going off - eight times now in 24/25. It's usually during the night so getting up to no water isn't funny. We've learned to fill the kettle up before retiring.
Sheepshanks said:
turbobloke said:
Power came back on just before 6am, in time for breakfast but annoying, again,
Didn t know it had gone off.Have you made enquiries about why it s happening? If no-one complains they ll think no-one is bothered.
Family in Hants had a few minutes without power twice this morning, first at 07.15 then at 08.10
We are village rural and our DNO is UK Power Networks and full power cuts are rare but one or two seconds cut offs are quite regular and annoying because they are long enough for clocks, computers and TV's to restart.
As a defence against these very short power cuts our fibre box, Wi-Fi router and all the smart home hubs for SmartThings, Hue, IKEA are powered by an uninterruptable power supply (UPS).
One really annoying problem with the short cuts is that the power seems to pulse for a couple of seconds and this causes the IKEA smart lights to receive a sequence of 6 on and offs which causes them to reset and I have to use the app to setup the smart automations again. I'm considering complaining to both UK Power Networks and IKEA but it seems to be a very first world problem.
Before changing our consumer unit (fuse box) to RCBO our old RCD would often trip out on any power cut which was annoying because sometimes we didn't realise when the power come back on. All our circuits are now RCBO and have never tripped off in a power cut.
I am signed up to UK Power Network alert texts and for most cuts I receive a text immediately that the power cut occurs and in the case of a short cut the power is already back on.
As a defence against these very short power cuts our fibre box, Wi-Fi router and all the smart home hubs for SmartThings, Hue, IKEA are powered by an uninterruptable power supply (UPS).
One really annoying problem with the short cuts is that the power seems to pulse for a couple of seconds and this causes the IKEA smart lights to receive a sequence of 6 on and offs which causes them to reset and I have to use the app to setup the smart automations again. I'm considering complaining to both UK Power Networks and IKEA but it seems to be a very first world problem.
Before changing our consumer unit (fuse box) to RCBO our old RCD would often trip out on any power cut which was annoying because sometimes we didn't realise when the power come back on. All our circuits are now RCBO and have never tripped off in a power cut.
I am signed up to UK Power Network alert texts and for most cuts I receive a text immediately that the power cut occurs and in the case of a short cut the power is already back on.
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