I’ve often thought about creating a multipart series regarding the dangers and truth behind “Green” technology. Laziness has been winning on the front of me not doing it. When I started this post Alan had just posted something about FERC changing the allowable deviation in frequency of the power grid. That was then followed by MRS over at RNS posting something regarding Germany decommissioning a bunch of their nuke plants. So for those who know me personally, you’ll have an idea of how much I really know about all this. Seriously I’m not going to go into full detail on everything I know about all this stuff. For those who don’t know me, my job entails me knowing lots about the power system and how it works. It’s funny really, I’m a EE code monkey, who knows power systems, digital signal processing, and embedded systems. For exact details on what I do or where I work, sorry, see the disclaimer. Suffice it to say I know lots about transmission, distribution, industrial installations, and power protection and operation. Teaching is selling, and what I hope to do here is provide a solid description and lesson in how the power system works. Describing what is actually going on so when your legislator runs his mouth off you’ll know it. How am I going to do it. I’m going to write a multi-part series covering the power system, how it works, and then I will discuss how different proposals and political pushes end up affecting it. I will also answer any questions that come in, either in the comments directly or in a post if I feel it’s significant. So in todays installment I’m going to cover at a very high level an overview of the power system, what different parts do, and how they relate. Continue reading →