[time-nuts] Line Frequeny Stablity

[Peter Reilley]

Think of it as an ocean liner trying to keep a dead straight course to 
it's destination.
It weighs many tons and wind and waves may drive it off it's path but 
the captain
can correct for this.   It eventually arrives at it's destination and is 
only a few feet
from the dock.

The total rotating mass of all the generators in a network is many times 
the mass of an
ocean liner.   The operators do their best to keep them running at the 
correct frequency.
Unexpected load changes can cause some divergence, but over time the 
average is
dead on.

When I installed power plants in the 1970's they has a special "clock" 
that showed the
cumulative error in terms of clock time.   The clock had two inputs, one 
from the utility
power and the other from some reference, possibly WWV.   Normally the 
"clock" was
pointing up at zero and not moving.

If the generator ran a little too fast the clock would move forward.   
As the operator
observed the clock moving away from zero he would reduce the plant's 
power and the
clock would move backward toward zero.   His goal was to keep the clock 
at zero and
not moving.   Thus, your bedside clock was always on time even if there 
were temporary
excursions fast or slow.

Pete.


On 4/4/2017 5:28 PM, Thomas D. Erb wrote:
> Thanks for the info.
>
>
> So that tells me how data is recorded - but not how the frequency is kept stable ?
>
> Is the line frequency now directly tied to GPS clock - with no drift ?
>
> Thomas D. Erb
> tde at electrictime.com<mailto:tde at electrictime.com> /
> Electric Time Company, Inc.
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