Reply #29: Florida is an "Island" electrically [View All]

[ThomWV]

Very simplified version of what happens:

Control equipment for Generators generally cause them to trip out of the system if they wonder off the grid's cycle by just a couple percent, 3 I think it is. The way Florida is wired the state has little interconnection with neighboring states but very much interconnection within the state. That means that what happens in Florida stays in Florida, but when it happens in Florida it has the potential to take out more than one part of the state.

So what happens is if one generating facility gets a bit out of wack with the rest of the grid it pops off line. That sends a shock down the line in that the rest of the grid has to immediately take up the slack resulting from the lost source. Sometimes the shock itself trips off more generators and when that happens blackouts spread. That's about it. Not so very complicated. Once they pop out for whatever reason it takes a while to get them all synchronized to bring them back on line. It certainly helps if loads are kept to a minimum while that is going on.