Electricity blackouts in Ecuador

[dipsydoodle]

Source: BBC News

Ecuador has introduced electricity rationing after a drought led to acute water shortages at the country's main hydro-electric power plant at Paute.

There have already been blackouts in the capital, Quito, and the Pacific port city of Guayaquil, officials say.

They say power to residential areas will be cut by between 5% and 10%, but businesses will not be affected.

The drought, which has hit the Andes region, is the worst in four decades, correspondents say.

The Paute plant, in eastern Ecuador, has been forced to halve its average production because of the drought.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8347954.stm

[Blandocyte]

1. But will it affect HCJB shortwave

or will Jeebuz provide?

[Judi Lynn]

2. Sounds familiar, for some reason!

Closer to home:

~snip~
Texas
In April 2006, parts of Texas experienced rolling blackouts due to excessive air conditioner use because of unexpectedly high temperatures. The longest power outage lasted for a period of five hours, affecting areas in the Middle to the South of Texas. The Texas power system runs on a system similar to the one in California.

California
Though the term did not enter popular use in the U.S. until the California electricity crisis of the early 2000s, outages had indeed occurred previously. The outages were almost always triggered by unusually hot temperatures during the summer, which causes a surge in demand due to heavy use of air conditioning. However, in 2004, taped conversations of Enron traders became public showing that traders were purposely manipulating the supply of electricity, in order to raise energy prices.

On December 13, 2003, shortly before leaving office, Governor Gray Davis officially brought the energy crisis to an end by issuing a proclamation ending the state of emergency he declared on January 17, 2001. The state of emergency allowed the state to buy electricity for the financially strapped utility companies. The emergency authority allowed Davis to order the California Energy Commission to streamline the application process for new power plants. During that time, California issued licenses to 38 new power plants, amounting to 14,365 megawatts of electricity production when completed.

Rolling blackouts were again imposed in late August 2005 in Southern California due to the loss of a key transmission line; the transmission line shut itself off because of a faulty sensor.

Most of California is divided into 14 power grids, each containing approximately 7% of electricity customers in the state, creating a total of 98%. The remaining 2% are placed on a separate grid, where users such as hospitals and police stations are exempt from ever having their power deliberately cut off.

In a Stage 1 emergency only a general call for voluntary conservation is issued, while a Stage 2 emergency results in power being temporarily cut off to certain large users, primarily industrial concerns, who have agreed to this arrangement in exchange for lower rates. When a Stage 3 power emergency is declared, electricity to one of the grids is shut off for a fixed period of time, which can range from 60 minutes to 2½ hours. If after this period of time the Stage 3 emergency still exists, power is restored to this grid but then the next grid in the sequence is blacked out, and so on, until the situation is stabilized — the blackout thus "rolls" from one grid to the next.

In California, each customer's electric bill includes the number of the power grid (from 1 to 14) that customer belongs to; this gives customers at least some advance notice of when their electricity might be turned off in the event of a Stage 3 emergency. The grids are set up in such a manner as to ensure that a large percentage of customers in the same neighborhood would not be blacked out concurrently, which could invite looting and other related problems. Normal electricity customers can fall within the areas reserved for emergency use (if they are near a hospital or other critical infrastructure), in which case their electric bill will indicate a power grid of 99 and they will not be affected by rolling blackouts.

Elsewhere
In many East Coast states (such as New York State and New Jersey), "brownouts" rather than rolling blackouts are implemented during power emergencies. In this scenario, instead of the power being cut off altogether to a certain percentage of customers, the voltage is reduced by a certain percentage to all customers — the resulting dimming of electric lights being the origin of the term "brownout." Brownouts can cause significant damage to unprotected electronic equipment, but usually have no effect (other than reduced performance) on incandescent lights or some types of motors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_blackout

[Psephos]

4. What does this have to do with Ecuador? nt

[earcandle]

3. Lots to pay attention to in Ecuador right now.