Sunday
18 July
2021 |
Power interruption 17 - 18th July
This is to clear up some rumours that the power outages last weekend were connected with Solar Panels. This only affected properties in Chard Road west from the Village Hall, Burstock Lane and Netherhay Lane.
From phone calls with Western Power and discussions with their on site workers I will try to summarise what happened:
Western Power (WP) organised planned work to replace some poles which carry the High Voltage (HV) overhead cables supplying the village, the HV had to be disconnected and mobile generators were supplied to maintain supply. Most of the village received notification of a break in supply in the morning and again in the evening while the change over to generator took place.
The west end of the village (Chard Road west from the village hall, Burstock Lane and Netherhay Lane*) were not informed as it was planned that the generator(at the village hall) would be switched in and out without any supply interruption. However this did not happen and the supply was taken off at about 0900 and the generator connected. There were several interruptions which were caused by the generator cutting out due to solar pv panels trying to ‘feed-in’. Switching off the village hall pv panels helped but there were several more breaks and others with solar pv panels agreed to temporarily switch them off after which the generator stayed on line until mains supply was restored at around 1830.
*Technical update gleaned from discussions with WP
The west end of the village (Chard Road west from, and including, the village hall, Burstock Lane and Netherhay Lane) is supplied from the overhead HV via a single phase transformer located at the edge of the village hall play area. This is a split-phase system with two 240 volt live wires and a common neutral. The intention was for the single phase generator to be synchronised and connected with the mains supply, the mains supply would then be disconnected and the supply maintained by the generator with no interruption. For reasons not explained this did not happen and there were short (5 mins) breaks to change over.
Other parts of the village are supplied with a three-phase system which meant a break in supply in order to change over to a generator so they were given the notice of interruption.
On Sunday 18th the power went off again following a loud bang from the sub-station in Oxhayes, mains supply was restored to Chard Road west but other part of the village were put back on the generators which were still in situ.
Western Power are now working in Oxhayes to repair the fault.
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Chard Road west
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