I work for a very large utility on the west coast in their hydro electric division. We're not allowed to show anyone the insides of the powerhouses and how they work (no public photography), so this is so cool that you are able to make these videos and show people how amazing Hydropower is!
I was invited to tour one built in 1903 and it was one of the most exciting days of my lifetime. Waiting to hear if I can fly over it; one of the reasons I got my FAA sUAS license and registered my drone with the FAA.
Back in 1996, me dad and I literally knocked on the power house entrance door to the Hetch Hetchy Dam in Moccasin, Dude answered very confused as to who we were. My dad explained we were just fishing at Don Pedro and drove by the powerhouse and wondered if they did tours. The guy readily let us in and showed us the control room, went down below the generator, saw the commutator. Was pretty awesome, they also let us take pictures. 90's was a very different time though. Today, the power house we walked up to and knocked on the door, now access is blocked off from several hundred feet away with barbwire fencing.
I think this finally explains a story my grandfather told me many years ago about his time working in the power plant of a cement factory in the middle of the last century. He was bringing up a generator off a weir on the river and described a dial which I now understand to be a synchroscope. Grandpa messed up very badly while trying to get it in sync with PP&L and said the whole plant shook as for a few seconds the generator looked like it was trying to rip itself out of the ground. He saw some of the big bosses running down from the front office with what he was sure would be his pink slip. Grandpa managed to spin the generator back up and get it synchronized just before they arrived and then made a big show of playing dumb, walking around and inspecting all the gauges. With everything humming along perfectly, the bosses just shrugged and went back to the front office, leaving him to, and with, his job.
It is the load angle. The load angle between generator and the grid determines the direction and magnitude of the power transfer between the grid and the generator. At the top of the synchro scope is zero, which transfers no power. Going clockwise, 3:00 is maximum power from the generator to the grid. The power drops to zero, at 6:00. past 6:00, the grid drives the generator like a motor, with the maximum power at 9:00. As the angle goes back to the top, the power driving the generator drops to zero. The goal is to close the relay as the synchro scope needle passes 12:00, while the generator is rotating slightly faster than the grid frequency. At zero, the grid puts no load on the generator, so the generator continues ahead, until the power to the grid counteracts the accelerating power applied to the turbine (but only if the load angle does not pass 3:00, before the generator matches the grid frequency). What can go wrong? If the excitation is too low, the grid will not draw enough power slow the generator into synchronism. The load angle passes 3:00 and even passes 6:00, where the generator flips to being a motor and the torque on drive shaft flips. This can produce vibrations. if you have a brain fart and close the relay when the pointer is at zero, but the generator frequency and grid frequency are not even close, the torque reversals happen at twice the beat frequency and things will shake violently. Even just missing the zero angle can produce large current transients, which could cause vibrations.
That's an incredible story! It sounds like your grandfather had quite the close call at the power plant. The synchroscope definitely played a crucial role in preventing a disaster. It's amazing to hear about these firsthand experiences and how critical proper synchronization is to keep everything running smoothly. Your grandpa's quick thinking and ability to get the generator back in sync just in time must have been a real lifesaver. Thanks for sharing this fascinating piece of history! It adds a whole new layer of appreciation for the challenges faced by those who keep our power systems running. #PowerPlantStories #EngineeringHeroes #SynchroscopeSavesTheDay
Way back when I was a student at Purdue University in the 1970s, there was a machine lab in the EE building with WWII surplus motor generator sets. The instructor gave a demo with a set consisting of a variable speed electric motor and a 3-phase generator. He had three light bulbs and a knife switch. He tweaked on the motor speed until the lights were flashing very slowly, but he mis-timed closing the switch. This was about a 10 HP set mounted on big shock mounts, and I thought sure it was going to rip itself off those mounts as the rotor tried to turn about 60 degrees instataeously when he closed the switch. So I got a very convincing demonstration of what you avoided, albeit on a much smaller scale.
During 1960s when U.K. was building big coal fired plants they had a few synchronising accidents. One unit was grid connected 180 degrees out of phase (probably an instrument fault we don’t know) the rotor was spat out of the stator and thrown out of the building. Your 100 tons of rotating mass will always fail when hit by the grid. Thankfully nobody was hurt.
There's a lot of energy in the rotating mass. For some it was 35,000ft of m.g.h energy. I heard a number of those stories as I worked for 18 months at NEI Parson Turbine Generators (UK). The best claim to fame was an overspeed generator that had a piece of lead shot stuck in the steam pilot valve - Impressively none of the broken turbine exited the casing!
"Somewhere there's a bass fisherman half a mile up the river, wondering just what the hell is going on, as some idiot is learning how to bring a power plant online"
I worked for a company which had its own hydroelectric power plant and we had only two guys who knew how to startup and sync the turbine. I watched them a few times and always found this to be sorcery. Thanks for making this video and for the explanation!
Thanks for watching! :) There's going to be a LOT more videos coming out soon, and they will be going into much higher levels of detail on how everything works.
Back in the 80' when I was studying electrotechnics at the local Technical Univeristy in my home city of Łódź in Poland we students had practical exercises in the lab. One of them was to show us how to synchronize a generator with the grid. There was a 3-phase generator driven by a DC motor whose speed could easily be controlled. We had to bring the frequency of the generator as close to 50Hz as possible and then watch the lamps trying to fine tune the rotational speed and effectively the frequency to make the lamps blink really slowly, like once in every 2-3 seconds. After achieving this we had to wait for the moment these lamps got dark and instantly connect the generator to the grid. There were circuit breakers so there was no danger of the generator falling apart in case of missynchronization. That lab was a big fun for me.
@@petarnikolic998because the two entities (the generator and the grid) will attempt to come to an equilibrium, but the energy mass of the grid is so insanely large that it just fucking destroys your generator.
we have done that also at city of Cluj Napoca at UTCN, amazing Electrical machines lab, the same lab was also making a current transformer angry with coils singing 😂. Loved it. We also have a HV lab and man, 100KV arcs are LOUD.
Thanks so much for making this video! I'm an electrical engineer and I've always been fascinated with the power grid and I really appreciate the opportunity to look behind the scenes. I almost went the "Power" route out of school but chose control systems and signal processing. No regrets, but I still get a thrill seeing big systems do their thing. Thanks again!
ChiliBass..... I have AGM and lithium battery banks and inverters. Starting about 5 years ago, our power would go out 4-5 times a year from a few minutes to 47 hours. Being a smarty pants during power outages, at night I would turn on every light, open my windows, and play Innagaddadavida on my bass guitar with the amp cranked up. Sometimes I would run the vacuum, other times I played War of the Worlds with the sound cranked up. It made the neighbors down the valley wonder why I had power and didn't hear a generator running. In 2019 I cooked our Thanksgiving turkey on batteries when a truck hit a power pole in the rain at night. Now I lay low and don't show off as things are getting pretty serious these days and I don't want uninvited guests ripping me off.
Another controls guy here... loved the video. I know a little about generation but not enough to even think of starting up a unit - lol. I enjoy it when I get chances to play with big stuff, e.g. doing controls for a 1,000 ton refrigeration plant. There's something kinda exciting about hitting a key on the laptop and hearing/feeling 4500HP worth of compressors spinning up!
@@kimmer6 now i aint asking about your batteries, but rather why the fuck your power went out 47 hours at a time. also wondering how you get by, cause up here we be compensated by the power company for anything over seven hours and i barely get by
Exactly what I needed to know! :) I was struggling to start my 400,000 watt turbine hydroelectric generator after a reboot. I should mail it back for a refund.
Typically when you initiate a "Start" on a hydro unit the governor will open the gate servo to a preset "Speed no load " position to roll the generator off close to synchronous speed . Excitation to the generator field can then be applied either manually or initiated automatically by a speed switch (now you will see generator AC voltage slowly building up on the volt meters) . Generator output frequency and voltage can now be matched to the bus frequency and voltage by slowly increasing the water flow applied to the turbine to adjust the frequency and the field current applied to increase or decrease generator output voltage being compared to the bus AC values . With a properly tuned governor you should be able to adjust the generator speed so the sync scope is slowly moving in a clockwise (gen freq faster than bus freq) and every time the pointer passes through 12 O'clock on the meter the generator is momentarily in sync with the bus and the generator breaker can be closed just before 12 O'clock (allowing for Generator breaker closing speed and slip frequency )synchronizing the generator to the grid . After synchronizing you can load the generator by increasing the governor speed setpoint and putting more water on the turbine . The generator speed cannot increase now as it is held at 60 hertz by the grid you will see watts increase out of the generator now with the water increase . If you were to adjust the speed setpoint down now to the point where you are not producing generator watts output you are then "Motoring " the generator but generator frequency will remain at 60 Hz. held by the grid . Increasing or decreasing the generator field current will result in Vars out , unity power factor . or Vars in condition but that is a lesson for another day. Hope this helps people who expressed interest.
Excellent description! I never sync'd a hydro unit, but routinely synced 2MW generators on a nuke sub to shore power, and each to each other. (Many years ago.) Same technique. However, with 4MW of power tying to the grid, you have to be careful you don't blow up shore power breakers and feeder lines. (I've seen this happen and it's pretty spectacular.) Subs back in the day also had a pair of 10 ton motor / generator sets to go between the ships battery and the big steam driven generators. These MG sets could either charge the battery or take power from the battery and supply the ship's AC loads when the steam driven generators were off line. On one sub, along side the pier, went to sync the MG set to the generator on that side. The electricians mate had the MG set going way way to fast to sync and closed the breaker almost exactly 180 degrees out of phase. The MG set was ripped off of its mounts and bounced around the lower machinery space causing considerable damage. Blew up the shore power breaker as well. They were in dry dock for quite a while to fix that boo boo. No, because the MG speed control was out of whack causing the MG speed to go up and down like a yo-yo. The engineer and CO were getting impatient and told the EM to close the breaker on the next time it crossed sync, not realizing that it takes time for the big MG set breaker to close. By the time it closed, the the MG had already jumped to the 180 degree out position. So, it was the CO's fault.
I know a later reply, but to prevent motoring of the generator, most protection circuits have a reverse power protection relay that drops the breaker if the power in exceeds about 5% of the system capacity. This is why instead of matching speed, then phase, then closing the breaker, most sets are run slightly fast so when the phase passes 12:00 the breaker is closed and there is forward power generation. Otherwise a bounce against the grid will trip the protection when the power reversed on the bounce.
I kid you not: here in Finland, in 2016 a drunken guy broke into a hydroelectric power plant and started pressing all and any buttons he could find. The end result was one blown up 1.5 megawatt generator. I'd love to have seen that. He should have taken a time machine and watch this video I guess!
@@sb.sb.sb. Having taught in and ran an EE college power lab for over 2 years, can confirm that these are better than any textbook. Even Earl and Traister.
Always amazed to realize, that as a plant like this connects and ramps up its power output, _all the other plants on the grid back off by the same amount_ , keeping everything in balance.
And that (at least in Europe) other plants will be informed prior to the startup to avoid causing a voltage spike and causing a cascade failure because security systems would otherwise see it as a serious problem and switch off. Which could case other plants to notice a drop, consider it a possible short in the high voltage grid and to prevent damage, switch off plant output.
@@Dutch3DMaster I doubt anyone was informed of that 350kw startup. When we get a fault in our induction smelting we instantly offline about 1-4MW of load without any consequences for the grid. The grid provider once also dropped our whole plant to save an overloading connection on their part. This is why you want a big synchronized power grid as it can absorb more fluctuations.
@@exi I'm guessing the threshold for when planning needs to be done is dependent on the size and capacity of the other units nearby. But, yeah. Did measurements on a 25MW turbine for a full day once and had to have full local control of the thing, ramping up and down, starting and stopping as we needed. Apart from a phone call to the grid controller basically letting them know that we were assuming full control of the plant for the day, there were no requirements of us to actually keep them posted on what we were doing and when. Though obviously the start-stop procedure was taken care of by the governor. We were the ones changed the wicket gate opening manually after it was hooked on.
@@Dutch3DMaster It wouldn't raise voltage on the grid? It would increase the grid frequency but the other generators will back off to maintain grid frequency
This video was enlightening! I never really thought about the force that the grid exerts on the generator, but I see just how crucial it is for the generator to be in sync. Connecting to the grid is like matching engine RPM when doing a clutch-less shift in a manual transmission. The generator is like the engine, with its RPM governed by a valve that controls the flow of some fluid. The grid has inertia, just like a moving car (albeit many many orders of magnitude more). When you shift in a car and the RPM of the input shaft doesn't match that of the output, then your engine is going to spin up or down as some of the kinetic energy of the car is transferred to it. The way you have to fine-tune the flow also reminded me of the process of tuning old pot-controlled analog televisions (back when analog signals were still broadcast) as you watched the image tear and scroll up or down the screen, trying to get the scan rates to sync up.
Another way to think about it is like trying to jump from one car to another car, while both of the cars are hurtling down the freeway at different speeds. Before you can safely jump from one car to the other, you have to get the cars right beside each other and traveling at just about the same speed. You have a very small margin of error, and Bad Things(tm) will happen if you slip and fall.
that is a perfect analogy between a non syncro vehicle and syncing a hydroplant. With both you have to get the whole process perfect and you have a few seconds to go to the next step.
@@Taedrin That’s the most stupid analogy I’ve heard. If you know you know there’s no need to “dumb it down” more than it needs to… A second year electrician knows this smh 🤦♂️
I always enjoy watching people love what they do. My wife catalogs art for an auction house, and she loves it. I am a watchmaker, and I love it. We were both 40 when we started on these respective paths. Don't give up on a dream kids! It's never too late to start something new.
I started late as an apprentice and became a heavy duty journeyman mechanic at 36. I’m now considering going to university in engineering but it seems incredibly daunting and almost impossible. Your message gives me hope! Thank
Cool video, which brings back two memories for me. First, as an electrical engineering student, I remember doing this in the power lab at school. Of course, the powerplant we were syncing was much smaller - maybe 100KW, powered by a large DC motor instead of water. Same principals though. Second was even earlier - in high school I worked as a draftsman at a local hydroelectric dam. Since I was interested in electrical engineering, the chief engineer at the dam took me under his wing. We went all over that dam, the powerplant, inside the control cabinets. One day we were out touring around when they took one of the 60MW generators offline, which we watched from down in the shaft gallery where the wicket gate control servo was located. Normally, these huge hydraulics move imperceptibly slow, but on shutdown (and I can only imagine, startup), I saw how quickly this huge mechanism could move. It was awesome.
if you ever get the chance to visit glacier park or yellowstone.......... stop by fort peck dam in NE MT.... take a tour im a "lake kid"..... so, ive been through the tour like 100 times LOL . but the best one was the high school trip not sure if its just normal now.... but we got to see the triple divider (splits the main "tube" into 3.... for the 3 turbines) . never saw that on the 49 other times and havent been back since.... as i kinda figure ive seen it all (pre-9/11... the short cut to the family farm was between the power houses and the transformer yard....they put a fence up) . . it looks like a bad ass security checkpoint...... but just google what ya need specific dates and times...... and the proper ID (2 forms IIRC) . my grandmother wrote a lot of the "script" they used (if not at least parts of it today) took her lunches at the top of the surge tanks, on the roof, overlooking quite a bit of area!!!
he he he, live show starts in 5 minutes. You're welcome to hop in the discord and see just how deep the rabbit hole goes. discord.gg/KhTKWE3gCC I'm on every night at 10pm Eastern on the live channel.
This takes me back to my Navy days onboard an Oliver Hazard Perry (FFG-7) frigate. As an Electric Plant Control Console operator, I got really good at synchronizing to "shore power" and picking up or removing the grid power. Four Stewart Stevenson V16 diesel engines capable of generaterating about 750 kW each.
Pretty much same here, but with 4 600-PSI steam turbine generators. Around 900 Kw each. There was a sign above the control console which said "Double-check! The National Power Grid WILL win the argument".
I used to help overhaul those v16 engines at SIMA mayport on those FFGs. At my first command in Newfoundland, we had 900KW diesel generators. I got to sync them up to “shore power”, and take over the load for the building that absolutely could not lose power. Then sync up shore power to the genny and secure the diesel when the power from the island had stabilized. I remember being nervous has bell when I had to do alone before my petty officer came in,
Many many years ago i was with my highschool on a visit to hydroplant. That hydroplant has 4 generators, two 110MW and two 115MW. It was in late 90s and they where synhronizing gens by the click of the mouse. They had large grey enclosures (row 50m long) with hundreds of meters and levers, but that was only for emergency use. All operations where done by industrial PC, and all parameters where seen in real time. From water flow, rotor and stator temp, bearing temp, exciter gen power and output power.
What you want when you close the breaker is for the synchroscope to be going slowly in the fast direction (spinning clockwise). Then close the breaker at about 10 degrees from the top. This way it closes right at the top. You want it slow in the fast direction because then when the breaker is closed, the machine will take on some load immediately. If it's moving in the slow direction (like it was in the video), the machine becomes a load on the grid at first (until he started loading it by opening the valves a bit more).
And as it takes load, the counter force generated by that slows the turbine down a bit because current flowing through the wires causes an opposing magnetic field. The more current you have, the stronger that field.
Agree with you on the clockwise rotation, it's what we did on RN ships to bring the generators online and as you said it's because you want the oncoming gen to snatch a bit of load to prevent the engine being forced backwards. However we were trained to close the breaker at the 12 oclock position (later ships allowed you to hold the breaker over at 5 to the hour). We only had the sync going backwards if we were trying to parallel with the shore side power, i.e. shed the load off our generators. Will admit I wanted to break one of his arms as at one point he had both on the switchboard! Big no no
That first attempt was the worst sync job I’ve ever seen in 33 years running power generation! The 2nd was lucky. Your instructor taught you to do that?
The first attempt had the sync scope going much too quickly in the wrong direction (slow). You should have adjusted the speed to spin slowly (about the speed of a clock second hand) in the fast direction and waited until it was stable. Then you close the breaker about 3 minutes to 12 o’clock. The consequences of closing the breaker in the wrong position is devastating to the generator. The second attempt was better but still rushed.
@Chris Boden, I had a friend of the family that has since passed on, who was on the beaches of Normandy running and synching the electric generators on the beach after the invasion. He told of how it took a bunch of times to get the gennies to all sync up, and how they kept crashing out of lock; all while all the brass sat there waiting for the power to come one! I never really appreciated the story, until watching you start up this one... It must have been a crazy scary time! His memories live on in me, and now you, my friend!
This is absolutely amazing. I have a very difficult time showing young PLC programmers who still don't understand the process control about peaking. This is a very fine example. Thank you.
Love these videos Chris, keep them coming. The sounds, the commentary, everything really. As a blind viewer, I love how you describe things and how the videos are produced. Can’t praise it enough. Brilliant! Keep it coming. 👍😁
@@Physicsduck i’ve always loved your channel, right back from the days when you used to take things apart and explain how they worked and even spin up some old hard drives and the like. Brilliant. 😂👍
I know that feeling! When I was in the navy, I was electrician mate of the watch on a Knox class Frigate. The first time I brought up a generator to sync with shore power, cut in the generator, shift the load and open the breaker to shore power was the scariest, most exhilarating experience. Great job on the channel!
Operators at the mill I worked at back in 1992 let me synchronize a 2 mega watt pelton wheel generator. The water valve opened manually and a deflection plate did the fine tuning on the generator rpm from the oil circuit breaker cell control panel, there were 2 incandescent light bulbs and a syncroscope like this set up. The operator told me to operate the breaker close handle just before the scope needle was at the top of the dial. Great video, thanks!
I work with 7x 1065kW gas combustion engines, and I can assure that there is a lot of talking done to these engines and their controllers. Granted there's generally a lot more expletives used, they can be very, very temperamental things. Each has its own personality/quirks and there is of course a problem child
You scared me on the first attempt to synchronize. Cool how that trip valve worked. A weird thing that I learned about hydroelectric generators is that they turn so slowly as compared to 1800 and 3600 rpm units that they require the excitation slip rings to be ground eccentric. This gives the carbon brushes slight movement so they don't stick in place despite spring pressure.
This brings back memories of my electrical apprenticeship, the class was split into 4 groups and each made, from a kit, a motor with a generator stacked on top. Most of the day was spent trying to sync the 4 sets together using the old Siemans Halsky method with lightbulbs, two bright and one dim. Eventually the room was synced and the teacher was congratulating everyone and he then leaned back on the wall...right onto the emergency power cutoff switch for the room, you can imagine what we said.
I did it during my time at the university with a motor and a generator, and people have told me later I was the last of the communications students allowed to do that because the one after me has screwed up the phase sequence and the massive concrete block has jumped a little... Excellent video, good explanation about the behaviour of the river.
Things that I didn't even know that I didn't know: That powering up a hydroelectric power plant could be exciting and nerve-wracking. Thank you for sharing your job with us.
Not hydro, but have done that for a bank of 4 400 KW diesel sets, so don't quite have the same bounce. To get the power pickup and prevent the reverse power drop, I was taught to run the generator a little fast by about 1/2 hertz. This way you get the slow 2 second rotation clockwise, and close about the 55 minute mark, so the phase pulls in, then as it was fast, will produce power upon closing, then open up the power. Learned this while in the Navy for going off shore power. Going back to shore power, the input to the syncroscope is reversed so the rotation is still clockwise by reducing the speed until shore power is about 1/2 HZ fast in relation to the diesels, then running parallel, so the shore power picks up some load, then throttles are set lower until the power off diesel drops to nearly zero, then the breaker opened for a no glitch transfer to shore power. Great video. Check with the manufacture about the sync process and if you can run slightly fast (clockwise) and close on the approach to 12:00 for a good sync with some pick up of load and prevent drop out from reverse power. Some newer equipment has protection to prevent closing out of phase in addition to reverse power, and over current drops.
Thanks for letting us watch ! Made me think back of a visit we (a bunch of control engineers and technicians) made to a large coal fired powerstation. A visit to the control room was included and while we were listening to the chief engineer one of our buddies made a bee line to the console were the turbines rpm were controlled. And wow did that chief move quickly ! Don't know if it was his years on the high seas (most of them came from a merchant navy engine room job) speaking, but I've never heard someone cursing so eloquently. Mind you, all in good fun, we wouldn't dream of messing with the GigaWatts they were handling there. That was way before all the modern windturbines were put up, and even then the grid was a big 'cat-and-mouse' game so to speak, hate to think what it must be now, even with the aid of powerful computers etc.
I'm glad you enjoyed it! My whole world is getting to share this stuff with people. I want to help as many people as I can to get excited about science and engineering. Thank you for watching!
I worked as assistant operator at Bull Run Hydro plant in Oregon back in the 1980s.The governors and controls were all hand operated .We were told to never overspeed at start up!The plant was built in 1913 what an experiance!
I've heard although never seen anything old enough to verify that the first generators were synchronized with a light bulb prior to even antique instruments. When the light bulbs are off there is no difference in potential between the generator and bus / load. When there is it is out of sync and at fully lit would be 180 out. When it was in sync some poor sap would manually close the gear. I build and maintain engine driven generators that produce more than this little hydro plant does but everything is automated now. They all have very fast smart protection relays on them and it all works great. I can't imagine being the person 100 years ago manually closing that gear while manually syncing a large generator. Definitely would make my butt pucker up every time. I'm sure Many a person was injured or killed by accidentally synching out of phase. Less an issue if it's just an induction generator but a synchronous will not be happy at all.
At school (1973) we had such a system as a practicum. The panel had 3 lights in a triangle configuration with ,only, the upper lamp on when the system was in sync. ...but as scholars we did change the wires so that it was on at 180 degree out of phase so when connecting to the grid the whole system shutdown with a enormous bang (and that was only a 3 kW system). So a 'not' happy generator is big understatement.
"I've heard although never seen anything old enough to verify that the first generators were synchronized with a light bulb prior to even antique instruments. " This is true. I've synced generators that had the syncroscope and the old school lights as a secondary indication.
i'm in the canadian navy, and if all else fails and we need to bring generators online, the ships have 2 little blinking lights and a whole lot of courage.
About 20 years ago I wrote a long description about starting a coal fired power plant. This was the synchronization of a 3600RPM 250MW steam turbine. Synching the machine, big or little, is always a high pucker factor moment. Hydro can be tougher because the machine is less responsive to control inputs. Bring the turbine to match the system frequency and the voltage to match the system voltage and you're were we started this discussion. Match the generator phase angle to the system phase angle with not too great of a slip frequency. (I liked about 1 rev of the synchroscope in maybe 30-45 seconds meaning that the turbine speed differed from synchronous by about 1/2 RPM or less. Most of the regular operators weren't as patient to fiddle with the control valve and the boiler conditions would change so that the turbine would speed up or slow down.) The speed governor wasn't used for startup/run-up so that full arc admission could be used to heat the inlet of the turbine uniformly. This meant that the turbine speed was controlled by hand. Not too hard as long as the boiler is under control. When the hand on the 'scope approaches the little mark at 12 o'clock put your hand on the main breaker control switch (BE sure to look at which way closes the breaker). You are now on the spot. Everybody in the control room and maybe throughout the plant will know if you screw up because the lights will dim, the floor will jump and the generator will make a noise like it just lifted a world record weight in the heavyweight class if you don't turn that handle at just the right time. People at other power plants may know it too if your machine is big enough and you screw up bad enough. At the magic moment, turn the control. The 'scope pointer should come *gently* to a stop at the little mark, the lights should not blink nor the floor jump and no giant grunting noises should be heard. Goose the turbine valve just a little to pick up some load, check that all 3 phases are carrying current and that the voltage is OK. Start breathing. The smallest machine I've synched was about 50MW, the largest was 650MW.
I am an ex-Navy sonar technician and retired Army 52E (prime power production specialist) and was hired to work around the west on the hydro-electric generators performing rebuilds, etc., if not for developing severe complications from Gulf War related problems, I would be doing it today. What a person in the electrical field shoots for besides a lineman or power plant operator/technician. Great job here! 🤙🤙
I've been doing hydro for 42 years and my biggest advise is to buy a multifunction generator protection relay. My favorite these days is the SEL 700G relay. The $3-4k cost is the best money you will ever spend on your hydro plant. It will protect your generator from any fault and give you the capability of full autosync . Good luck, small hydro isn't easy!
This is similar to how I feel when trying to sync an isolated 1500KVA generator back into the grid when it is struggling to hold sync long enough to close the switch. Such excitement and and the mild fear that sync drops before you close that switch by hand. I’ve only been there once or twice when it was wrong, and luckily I wasn’t the one closing the switch in these instances; it’s still pretty damn exciting to see those sparks and molten copper fly haha. Great video mate, I got exactly what I came for.
Learned about synchronizing in training and our instructor showed our class this video to give more physical insight into how the grid works. We work with portable generators with Deep Sea controllers but all in all still the same. Love coming back to watch this video every month or so to get a chuckle in your passion and get a refresher on sychronizing.
This video autoplayed while I'm multitasking at work, because I couldn't hit stop in time to continue my playlist of short circuiting power lines (they fascinate me) but man I'm so glad it did! Your commentary and enthusiastic energy is infectious, I love it!
I have no idea how I came across your videos on RUclips, but I find it amazing because I worked at the self same dams you are showing in your videos. I was there in mid 2010's era. This video brought back a bunch of memories. I've operated that very panel to get that generator in sync with the grid. That generator was the most reliable of the three plants I worked at on that river at the time. Messing with the Kaplan Turbine blade angles on that generator was interesting and could make for a good video if you're up to it. Finding the angle was fun because you had to utilize a stroboscope and match the flashes per minute to the RPM. However, if you jammed them into a limit, it was not fun to unjam. The process was shut down the generator, wait for the generator to completely stop, get the ratcheting socket wrench, jam the step stool into the angle switch on the panel (you can see the angle switch in the video) to engage the direction opposite of what it is jammed into, then you pray as you ratchet on that welded nut on top of the motor that's embedded into the generator shaft because once you set that thing free, the motor for the blade angle starts spinning at some gnarly RPM with your ratchet in tow, you need to dislodge the ratchet and then make a run to the panel to disengage the angle switch before it jams into its other limit. Things were all sorts of janky working there, but I enjoyed what I did. It was a learning experience. Good video though. Nice to see this equipment still in use.
I got to switch turbine generators 40 odd years ago as a cadet on a containership under the supervision of the 1st assistant engineer. First start the off line turbine generator, synchronize it to the on line TG, transfer the load to the just started one and then shut down the now off line TG. It was pretty freaking cool as a 21 year old kid, I didn't have to worry about tieing to the grid but I still could have blacked out the ship. Also, speed control on steam turbines was way easier than wicket gates and the river. Great stuff!
As an electrical engineer and general scientist, I have just learned more from this 7:56 video and the audible enthusiasm than I might have learned from trying to be a hydro engineer via schooling. Than you sir, for a explanatory and working job well done.
I used this video as a reference for my roleplay character bringing a coal-fired steam generator online for the first time. Great stuff, and thank you for making this video!
SWEET I love it when the synchroscope meter needle goes lines up with the top mark, the sync lights are out than SNAP the contactor gear close and goes online AWESOME :)
Good catch of the null, I've paralleled 1500KW Onan diesel generators to the grid at just a few degrees out of phase... major pucker factor! Well done Chris.
My friend was in Nigeria, for the commissioning of a water pumping station. When he realised that the gigantic Russian motor was starting under the pump load and DOL start, he warned that only 2 things could happen. Either the pump would start, or the alternators at the power station would stop. Unfortunately, the later happened, killing more than 20 people at the power station. Their attitude was just, Oh Well.
Awesome Job! That final kiss of the valve actuator did the trick. The MAGIC moment when the the synchroscope sat on zero . . . NOW ! I shouted outloud. Ha ha, I couldn't help myself. Terrific video. Congratulations! Next, valve full open, and you're online! The most honest excitement I've had in quite a while. Many thanks!
I know the feeling. At my work we used to have a 20KW UPS and a 75KW diesel generator. The UPS ouput was feeding the most important servers and uplink equipment at all times, while the UPS itself was fed by the grid under normal operation. In case the grid went down, the grid was automatically disconnected from not only the UPS, but from the entire buidling. Then the diesel generator started, and after it ran at 50Hz, it automatically switched to/fed the UPS input. So all important equipment was never left in darkness in case of a power outage. Great design. But there also was a switching panel that would allow you to connect the rest of the building to the diesel generator as well. This was a manual operation without risk (as the grid was switched off from the building). The scary part: in case the grid would come back online (while the diesel generator was feeding the entire office building), there was a LED on the switching panel that had the same job as the synchroscope meter in this video. If the grid and diesel generator were in sync, you were allowed to manually switch from diesel to grid. I never dared to do so. The two times this happend I have chosen the safe way. That is: disconnect the diesel generator before connecting the entire building to the grid again.
I was stationed on Forbidden Planet and was one of two that could get the Krell power station online. As I joke one day I fed the output back into the input.No one ever spoke to me again. Loved your video.
That was fun. Thanks for the video. At first I was thinking, why is the freq wandering like that, but than like you explained, you are dealing with a pulsing wave of water. Fun with the physics involved there. At lease with an engine driven generator, it'll groan in to phase. When you're dealing with literal TONS of moving water...OOF, that could get real ugly and expensive if something goes wrong.
I have retired from working 34 years in steam electric power plants with most of those years as a steam plant operator. Steam Turbine units take many hours to start up, but synchronizing the unit to the line is basically the same procedure once the steam turbine is near synchronous speed. The incoming voltage of the unit must match the line voltage. The turbine must be running just a little faster than the frequency of the system, so that the synchroscope is rotating slowly in the fast direction. Then close the circuit breaker when the synchroscope needle is pointed at the mark on the top. I have done this many times. In modern power plants this whole process is done by an automatic synchronizer device. This old hydro plant could have a modern automatic synchronizer installed that would automatically do all the items shown in this video.
Almost the same for me. 32 years in the nuclear business, +20 years as a turbine operator. Thankfully we had automatic synchronizers. Otherwise I would have filled my pants every time we connected the turbines/generators to the grid. 😁
Sure but once the unit synchronises any decent control system (that isn’t more than 40 years old) will bump the control valves to give block load of around 10%. In the meantime all the mechanical commissioning engineers will be moaning and freaking out about turbine temp, reheat flow and expansions … 😂😂😂
I am a steam plant operator now. Did my work term at a thermal plant, and I work now at a refinery which has a cogen. The thermal plant company wanted us to manually sync to the grid before switching it in to auto and we always sped it a little bit higher than the grid when syncing. That plant was old though, had a hybrid pneumatic/electronic control system. The refineries cogen was all autosynced. Auto start too, press one button on the DCS and just watch it go through crit speeds, heat soaks, and syncing, to full MW all on its own.
I'm no electrical engineer. Electricity is pretty much just magic to me. I have never once thought about what a power plant operator might be *doing* at work. And I've gotten by so far, thank you very much, without knowing that power plants had to sync with the grid like this. And yet... this was one of the most dramatic scenes I've ever seen play out. Amazing. It's probably no coincidence that RUclips showed me this random video while I was going down a filmmaking-and-drama video rabbit hole
Mr . Chris Boden , I liked to see you , acting in the frequency and in the tension and doing the parallel . Here in Brazil i worked operating Westinghouse Generators and General Electric . Hugs from here in Brazil .
I used to work with a guy who's job in the Navy was to supervise the connection of his Battleship to the Shore supply, this required close monitoring of the phase or major fireworks were the result .
Your co-worker was exaggerating his importance a bit. Bringing up and taking down generators while at sea is one of the FIRST watch qualifications that a Newbie Electrician's Mate will learn. Ditto for paralleling the Ship's generators with Shore Power, as this is something which is done whenever the ship enters port for more than a day or two. In other words, routine. However, he is correct that screwing it up is really hard on the equipment. The turbine generators make a really horrible sound when they get into an argument with the Grid and just about stall. It's not really difficult to get everything in synch, just requires adherence to procedures and watching what you are doing.
I work in a powerplant, 99.99% of time its a piece of cake. .01% of the time we have story time. The number of people that are afraid of my place of work is unreal when we give tours.
That is called 'generator tries its damnedest to go into low earth orbit.' Every case I have ever heard of resulted in Very Big Expensive Things going through some combination of the roof and walls of the building.
@@randacnam7321 A Georgia power plant did it about a decade ago because someone wired the unit wrong after an overhaul. It did hit the roof when it broke free of the floor. The Detroits we had a work could be synced to each other but not to the grid under most conditions. We had auto and manual settings but never had the spinning meter like he had. Ours you just watched the dials and the lights. Second time they go out and stay off was when you closed the breaker. Lot of fun if you have to do it by hand as they were spring operated and motor driven normally. IF the motor failed, you had a jacking lever to charge the spring, and the you tripped it closed. Another rod was used to trip it open. All of which made sounds like it was going to explode. As we really didn't need it, normal operation was on one generator only. If we needed to change generators, we'd just shut one down after starting the other. Then put the new unit on line.
I once saw a 5MW auxiliary Generator syncing it’s Motor to the grid. I’ll tell ya: Cotton can indeed rust! Boy, I shit my pants as this beast atomized itself in the process. The engineer doing the syncing had a face paler than a dead afterwards, worst day of his career I guess. Me and my coworkers could pull out all of our wires again few days later as the whole station needed a renovation after the accident .
@@wesleyhurd3574 His point is that once the operator connects it, it will of course be connected but it (the generator) WILL there upon sync or die trying. The turbine or other powering mechanism, and shaft or gearbox, etc. tend to be left to their own devices….
Fascinating stuff, thanks for sharing! If I understand right, you're able to tune the output voltage (therefore power output) of the turbine by adjusting the input power of the exciter. You mentioned in another video that an output of 250kw is considered a good day, 300kw a record, why not just crank up the exciter power to output as much power from the turbine as you want?
@ By increasing the excitation voltage you only increase the reactive power output (var) of the generator which drives the power factor down. You generally don’t want the power factor to be too low. Real power (W) is only increased through higher torque on the generator shaft (e.g. more energy from water flow). Hope this helps.
I worked for many years in the construction industry building power stations and dams, I had never seen the process of starting up a turbine that was a very interesting video.
Love it. I had a 12-71 Detroit generator that was rated for 350KW, 3-phase 240 and it was LOUD too! 😂 Like all Detroits it leaked oil everywhere, but that Dry-Sleeve made rebuilds easy!
Incredibly cool! I work with semiconductor active front end units that sync to the grid the easy way, by just generating an AC wave at the correct frequency. It's fascinating to see the old way of doing things. Certainly much more exciting :D
This triggered a couple of old memories. The first is when Ed Laxson (owner of Laxson Electric) told us about the time when he as an apprentice helped re-wire a generator after the city's engineer came in drunk and flipped the switch when it wasn't synced properly (back in the "three light bulb" days of synchronization). It ruined the generator and they had to "re-wind" it. Except that the windings were copper bars and he had to climb into the generator and bend the bars using a torch. This had to have happened sometime in the late '40s. The other thing was a friend of mine who bought the powerplant on the Duck River in Columbia, Tennessee back in the '90s or early '00s, and spent a year trying to get Duck River Electric to agree to buy his power. He finally got approval the day before the Duck River had (yet another) massive flood which completely overtopped the powerplant. I did get to tour the control room before this happened. It was pretty cool. The flood convinced him to get rid of the powerplant.
Once you get in sync you just give her hell and get things moving before it falls off. This one really doesn't like running at low. I'm glad you got to learn something new :)
Yup, once you're locked into grid frequency, you just throttle up. The grid restrains you, so RPM's won't increase, but the harder you push on the grid frequency, the more power you push out.
Chris, you’re a saint. Thank you for all the time and energy you put into these educational videos. I would love to have a full length conversation with you just to pick your brain. You’re a rockstar my man. Thank you!
In general it is a good idea to get close to synchronisation and to add some frequency to the generator before trying to sync. Make sure the synchroscope is going only clockwise. This ensures, that the generator won't fall into reverse power right after synchronisation. Reverse power will trip the protective relay quickly if there is one.
Yes, our professor told us about the same thing, when the generator is connectded to the grid, the sudden load induced on it causes it ti slow a bit and reduce the output frequency of AC.
Thanks for posting this. I've been in power control centers where they had the synchronous indicator, though the ones I saw were more like a cats-eye indicator than a meter. But I never happened to be there when they were phasing and connecting power. Very cool.
I used to synchronise 500MW coal fired units in the UK using a synch trolley. 50hz over here, - the unit operators used to hand over to the engineer to excite the rotor and take control of the governor! 🙂. Synch was across a 400KV CB onto the grid 😁. Now work with CCGT’s and total auto synch! Not sure if any of the operators would have the courage to do a manual synch! 😆. We also synchronised them with the synch scope going clockwise - pushing out on the grid to avoid reverse power trips! 😎👍
When I was an apprentis sperky an old timer told me of an ancient power plant where you stood at the end of a row of generators each flywheel had one spoke painted white, when they were all in line you pressed the switch.....and yes that was a long time ago....
As a guy that started out doing pipeline construction. Moved to building and renovating fresh water and sewer pump stations, along with water treatment plants. This was exciting as fuck to watch. So interesting. I've always wanted to build a dam. Hopefully one day!
My grampa was an electrical engineer working on hydro plants in Canada during the 70's and 80's during the height of the building related to the Columbia River Treaty. Back before they had automatic systems that could do this startup and sync, it was done the same way as you show, except the generators were 500MW units. He experienced what happens when an operator connects a turbine to the grid while the frequency is off by 1-2Hz. The bang as the unit is forced into sync could be heard and felt throughout the entire dam structure.
Wow, this takes me back. A long time ago I was a Merchant Navy Engineer. I loved bringing a ships alternator online. Having started the engine (750hp diesel) I would then tweak the governor to match the revs to the already online alternator(s) as indicated by the frequency gauges. Having got the revs (frequency) very close I would then start nudging the governor to very gently match the phase. This was done by watching the phase clockdial. This guage showed the phase angle between the two supplies, When the pointer was at the top the phase angle was zero. But the rotational inertia of the diesel was an issue, so I only closed the connection if the pointer was moving very slowly through zero. A lovely sense of achievement would then be had through knowing that I had successfully manipulated many hundreds of kilowatts that needing very gentle finessing. I suppose the only, but very big, difference is that I only had to worry about the very predictable rotational inertia of a diesel engine. I didn't have to worry about thousands of tons of water slopping about. Thanks for sharing the experience.
Always laughed at the DROOP setting , parallel gen sets Chief would say You tighten the droop she snaps the shaft..... Watching is fun, to go to work in the hole is long gone.
i love this guy's passion for this kind of thing, it's people like him who have the drive to teach the next generation and impart in them just how fucking amazing all of the technology around us is and why it's important to know about it
Really cool seeing how this is done. Also surprising to me how accurate the game "Infra" was at simulating this process. The game missed out on the water surging issues, but seems to have gotten the rest right. Infrastructure is cool.
This is a great video. I’ve heard of this process, but actually seeing it makes it more real. I have an interest in understanding the whole story of what happened at Chornobyl NPP. Part of that story has to do with understanding not just reactor side of the equation but also electricity generation side, specifically the turbines. One of the issues that a specialized crew was brought in for was to measure the vibration of the turbines.
Great! I used to work for Scottish Hydro-Electric as their telecoms manager. We had 50 hydro stations across the country, all but one remote controlled via ‘my’ network of microwave, fiber and leased lines! They ranged from small low head plants like yours through to around 10 MW. Only the biggest - a pumped storage 300 MW plant was manned, the others were dispatched from a central generation control room (and backup)
So if I understand this right: 1. Open the wickets (a sort of cylindrical throttle valve made of swing doors arranged in a circle) to start the turbine spinning. 2. The generator is actually an alternator, some electricity has to go in for other electricity to come out, which is how voltage is controlled. A device called an "exciter" is what makes/handles that ingoing electricity. I'm a car and airplane mechanic; my alternators get their field current from a lead acid battery, not sure about you power plant types. 3. Frequency and phase are RPM and instantaneous position of the generator's rotor. So it not only has to be turning at the right speed, but at the correct radial position. Before tying into the grid it is the operator's responsibility to match these things very closely with the grid, because you're Knight Rider backing KITT out of the truck at highway speed and dumping the clutch in first gear at the bottom of the ramp means a very broken Trans Am. 4. Once you're tied to the grid, the waveform on the grid will keep you in step. Basically you're an engine coupling up with a big freight train, the rest of the system locks your rotor speed and voltage, opening the wickets farther means more torque on the shaft, which the generator turns into amperage. Torque translates to amps. Grid voltage times amps means watts. Or hundreds of kilowatts. 5. If you are a load rather than a source, you will "fall off" the grid via some automated system or other to keep you from being a problem for everybody else. 6. The PLC or "autopilot" will control the exciter and/or wickets to match the demand from the grid attempting to maintain the standard voltage. How'd I do?
I believe when he shuts off his power plant others in the areas have enough capacity to sustain a load without this one being on. It’s always connected to the US system. If there was a total power failure when multiple power plants go out then he would be really screwed cause it’s hard recovering from a black out.
This could all be lies and I'd have no idea, but I love this explanation. I'm about to watch the video again with this newfound (and hopefully true) background as context
@@damonabets3779 Yeah he calls it a 350 kilowatt generator at the end, which is enough to power a small neighborhood. The rest of the power grid might not have even noticed this thing turn on.
As a ship’s engineer we do this a lot. Sometimes once or twice a watch (a watch is normally 4 hours) instead of matching the speed of the water in a River you are dialing in the speed of a Diesel engine. Same principle though. Though most ships have automated syncing and buss ties now, almost everybody learns to do it manually as you have done in the video. Cool video.
Thank you for watching! I'm sincerely glad you enjoy it. :) There's thousands of other videos on here of pretty much the same thing. I'm here to Educate, Inspire, and Entertain. Welcome to the weird! :)
@@Physicsduck If I've understood correctly, the role of the PLC is to trip the turbine, should the voltage/frequency deviate from preset bounds for a certain amount of time, right? What else does it do, if applicable? Also, is this a Francis or a Kaplan turbine on that setup?
A big diesel electric generator in a trailer truck gets put on line for the first time. Somewhere there was a mix-up in wiring the phases or the synchro scope. When the breaker was closed, the whole trailer rolled over onto it's side.
I hauled a couple of those to grocery stores, they were stored at the DC, and we were dispatched like the regular store runs. Had to send a technician to connect them and start them. Could run the store and most of the neighbourhood.
Many years ago (circa 1950) I spent several hours over a couple of years watching my dad operate a power plant (Horse Mesa Dam) on the Salt River, AZ. Memory is fading, but it took longer than this power plant to start up the 25 HZ turbines. Now, of course, they are remotely operated from another location in Phoenix, AZ, vicinity.
This always fascinates me. I have done this with a few small generators with some success and some disasters. I have my lights on a panel for hurricanes and when one generator needs to go down for maintenance I have more luck switching for a second or two so the house and facilities don't have to do down to switch gennies. Some of the diesel 1800 gensets don't seem to work well with 3600 modern things and managing throttle and voltage is difficult so I bought a couple Wilmar Reverse Power Relays (720TDX and a 710TD-7X) a couple years ago to try and automate some voltage parallel functions but lost interest as the Solar LiFePO4 Inverter system is about to come online and I can just import generator power in a number of ways. Subscribed!
I just watched the startup of a 100MW gas turbine generator last week and it had the same meter and two lights. Funny how things don't change. This is possibly the oldest gas turbine generator still in operation, late 50's. It made a lot more noise than yours.
Modern synchroscopes are different, but those are about 20-30 years old at most. For something like a century this kind of synchroscope was pretty much all you got for this task.
Ew. That seems like a gross device. Are there really giant diesel turbines running parts of the power grid? That seems incredibly inefficient and dirty.
I work for a very large utility on the west coast in their hydro electric division. We're not allowed to show anyone the insides of the powerhouses and how they work (no public photography), so this is so cool that you are able to make these videos and show people how amazing Hydropower is!
I was invited to tour one built in 1903 and it was one of the most exciting days of my lifetime. Waiting to hear if I can fly over it; one of the reasons I got my FAA sUAS license and registered my drone with the FAA.
Back in 1996, me dad and I literally knocked on the power house entrance door to the Hetch Hetchy Dam in Moccasin, Dude answered very confused as to who we were. My dad explained we were just fishing at Don Pedro and drove by the powerhouse and wondered if they did tours. The guy readily let us in and showed us the control room, went down below the generator, saw the commutator. Was pretty awesome, they also let us take pictures. 90's was a very different time though. Today, the power house we walked up to and knocked on the door, now access is blocked off from several hundred feet away with barbwire fencing.
@@NickM20985one more reason why I miss the 80's/90's.
Just make the recordings, you can release the videos many years later. This one has almost 500,000 views... Think about it, I'll thankyou later :)
You have just "somehow" admitted that your West Coast hydro-power plant looks alike ;) without showing pictures of that one ;)
I think this finally explains a story my grandfather told me many years ago about his time working in the power plant of a cement factory in the middle of the last century. He was bringing up a generator off a weir on the river and described a dial which I now understand to be a synchroscope. Grandpa messed up very badly while trying to get it in sync with PP&L and said the whole plant shook as for a few seconds the generator looked like it was trying to rip itself out of the ground. He saw some of the big bosses running down from the front office with what he was sure would be his pink slip. Grandpa managed to spin the generator back up and get it synchronized just before they arrived and then made a big show of playing dumb, walking around and inspecting all the gauges. With everything humming along perfectly, the bosses just shrugged and went back to the front office, leaving him to, and with, his job.
Must be from the Lehigh Valley!
It is the load angle. The load angle between generator and the grid determines the direction and magnitude of the power transfer between the grid and the generator. At the top of the synchro scope is zero, which transfers no power. Going clockwise, 3:00 is maximum power from the generator to the grid. The power drops to zero, at 6:00. past 6:00, the grid drives the generator like a motor, with the maximum power at 9:00. As the angle goes back to the top, the power driving the generator drops to zero. The goal is to close the relay as the synchro scope needle passes 12:00, while the generator is rotating slightly faster than the grid frequency. At zero, the grid puts no load on the generator, so the generator continues ahead, until the power to the grid counteracts the accelerating power applied to the turbine (but only if the load angle does not pass 3:00, before the generator matches the grid frequency).
What can go wrong? If the excitation is too low, the grid will not draw enough power slow the generator into synchronism. The load angle passes 3:00 and even passes 6:00, where the generator flips to being a motor and the torque on drive shaft flips. This can produce vibrations. if you have a brain fart and close the relay when the pointer is at zero, but the generator frequency and grid frequency are not even close, the torque reversals happen at twice the beat frequency and things will shake violently. Even just missing the zero angle can produce large current transients, which could cause vibrations.
Well, if you close the switch it will sync one way or another. It will just be a violent event if not pre synced.
@@richardbell7678Richard I like your understanding of synchronization.
That's an incredible story! It sounds like your grandfather had quite the close call at the power plant. The synchroscope definitely played a crucial role in preventing a disaster. It's amazing to hear about these firsthand experiences and how critical proper synchronization is to keep everything running smoothly. Your grandpa's quick thinking and ability to get the generator back in sync just in time must have been a real lifesaver. Thanks for sharing this fascinating piece of history! It adds a whole new layer of appreciation for the challenges faced by those who keep our power systems running. #PowerPlantStories #EngineeringHeroes #SynchroscopeSavesTheDay
Way back when I was a student at Purdue University in the 1970s, there was a machine lab in the EE building with WWII surplus motor generator sets. The instructor gave a demo with a set consisting of a variable speed electric motor and a 3-phase generator. He had three light bulbs and a knife switch. He tweaked on the motor speed until the lights were flashing very slowly, but he mis-timed closing the switch. This was about a 10 HP set mounted on big shock mounts, and I thought sure it was going to rip itself off those mounts as the rotor tried to turn about 60 degrees instataeously when he closed the switch. So I got a very convincing demonstration of what you avoided, albeit on a much smaller scale.
During 1960s when U.K. was building big coal fired plants they had a few synchronising accidents.
One unit was grid connected 180 degrees out of phase (probably an instrument fault we don’t know) the rotor was spat out of the stator and thrown out of the building. Your 100 tons of rotating mass will always fail when hit by the grid. Thankfully nobody was hurt.
Holy sh*t 😳. I would've pooed myself
Holy Crap!
I was told by my father it also happened in Newport. The rotor climbed out of the building and ended up in the river.
180 degrees is quite a large miss!! wow, it essentially created a giant electromagnetic brake, or motor?
There's a lot of energy in the rotating mass. For some it was 35,000ft of m.g.h energy.
I heard a number of those stories as I worked for 18 months at NEI Parson Turbine Generators (UK).
The best claim to fame was an overspeed generator that had a piece of lead shot stuck in the steam pilot valve - Impressively none of the broken turbine exited the casing!
"Somewhere there's a bass fisherman half a mile up the river, wondering just what the hell is going on, as some idiot is learning how to bring a power plant online"
You just saved that fish’s life.
Idiot? Really? Have you ever done it?
@@brustdiesel what are you on about?
I worked for a company which had its own hydroelectric power plant and we had only two guys who knew how to startup and sync the turbine. I watched them a few times and always found this to be sorcery. Thanks for making this video and for the explanation!
Thanks for watching! :) There's going to be a LOT more videos coming out soon, and they will be going into much higher levels of detail on how everything works.
I love the excitement at the end. Never lose that youthful passion.
Back in the 80' when I was studying electrotechnics at the local Technical Univeristy in my home city of Łódź in Poland we students had practical exercises in the lab. One of them was to show us how to synchronize a generator with the grid. There was a 3-phase generator driven by a DC motor whose speed could easily be controlled. We had to bring the frequency of the generator as close to 50Hz as possible and then watch the lamps trying to fine tune the rotational speed and effectively the frequency to make the lamps blink really slowly, like once in every 2-3 seconds. After achieving this we had to wait for the moment these lamps got dark and instantly connect the generator to the grid.
There were circuit breakers so there was no danger of the generator falling apart in case of missynchronization.
That lab was a big fun for me.
Can you explain to me why will generators fall apart if they are not sync with grid?
@@petarnikolic998 its like throwing a brick into a spinning washing machine
@@-IE_it_yourselfexcept it is full steel brick.
@@petarnikolic998because the two entities (the generator and the grid) will attempt to come to an equilibrium, but the energy mass of the grid is so insanely large that it just fucking destroys your generator.
we have done that also at city of Cluj Napoca at UTCN, amazing Electrical machines lab, the same lab was also making a current transformer angry with coils singing 😂. Loved it. We also have a HV lab and man, 100KV arcs are LOUD.
Thanks so much for making this video! I'm an electrical engineer and I've always been fascinated with the power grid and I really appreciate the opportunity to look behind the scenes. I almost went the "Power" route out of school but chose control systems and signal processing. No regrets, but I still get a thrill seeing big systems do their thing. Thanks again!
Glad you enjoyed it! Thank you for being an Engineer! You're making the world a better place and I appreciate it!
ChiliBass..... I have AGM and lithium battery banks and inverters. Starting about 5 years ago, our power would go out 4-5 times a year from a few minutes to 47 hours. Being a smarty pants during power outages, at night I would turn on every light, open my windows, and play Innagaddadavida on my bass guitar with the amp cranked up. Sometimes I would run the vacuum, other times I played War of the Worlds with the sound cranked up. It made the neighbors down the valley wonder why I had power and didn't hear a generator running. In 2019 I cooked our Thanksgiving turkey on batteries when a truck hit a power pole in the rain at night. Now I lay low and don't show off as things are getting pretty serious these days and I don't want uninvited guests ripping me off.
Another controls guy here... loved the video. I know a little about generation but not enough to even think of starting up a unit - lol. I enjoy it when I get chances to play with big stuff, e.g. doing controls for a 1,000 ton refrigeration plant. There's something kinda exciting about hitting a key on the laptop and hearing/feeling 4500HP worth of compressors spinning up!
Can you imagine what it takes to start up a nuclear power plant.
@@kimmer6 now i aint asking about your batteries, but rather why the fuck your power went out 47 hours at a time. also wondering how you get by, cause up here we be compensated by the power company for anything over seven hours and i barely get by
Exactly what I needed to know! :) I was struggling to start my 400,000 watt turbine hydroelectric generator after a reboot. I should mail it back for a refund.
You must be stupid. Everyone knows this.
LOL!
Typically when you initiate a "Start" on a hydro unit the governor will open the gate servo to a preset "Speed no load " position to roll the generator off close to synchronous speed . Excitation to the generator field can then be applied either manually or initiated automatically by a speed switch (now you will see generator AC voltage slowly building up on the volt meters) . Generator output frequency and voltage can now be matched to the bus frequency and voltage by slowly increasing the water flow applied to the turbine to adjust the frequency and the field current applied to increase or decrease generator output voltage being compared to the bus AC values . With a properly tuned governor you should be able to adjust the generator speed so the sync scope is slowly moving in a clockwise (gen freq faster than bus freq) and every time the pointer passes through 12 O'clock on the meter the generator is momentarily in sync with the bus and the generator breaker can be closed just before 12 O'clock (allowing for Generator breaker closing speed and slip frequency )synchronizing the generator to the grid . After synchronizing you can load the generator by increasing the governor speed setpoint and putting more water on the turbine . The generator speed cannot increase now as it is held at 60 hertz by the grid you will see watts increase out of the generator now with the water increase .
If you were to adjust the speed setpoint down now to the point where you are not producing generator watts output you are then "Motoring " the generator but generator frequency will remain at 60 Hz. held by the grid . Increasing or decreasing the generator field current will result in Vars out , unity power factor . or Vars in condition but that is a lesson for another day. Hope this helps people who expressed interest.
My old friend reverse power
Excellent description! I never sync'd a hydro unit, but routinely synced 2MW generators on a nuke sub to shore power, and each to each other. (Many years ago.) Same technique. However, with 4MW of power tying to the grid, you have to be careful you don't blow up shore power breakers and feeder lines. (I've seen this happen and it's pretty spectacular.) Subs back in the day also had a pair of 10 ton motor / generator sets to go between the ships battery and the big steam driven generators. These MG sets could either charge the battery or take power from the battery and supply the ship's AC loads when the steam driven generators were off line. On one sub, along side the pier, went to sync the MG set to the generator on that side. The electricians mate had the MG set going way way to fast to sync and closed the breaker almost exactly 180 degrees out of phase. The MG set was ripped off of its mounts and bounced around the lower machinery space causing considerable damage. Blew up the shore power breaker as well. They were in dry dock for quite a while to fix that boo boo. No, because the MG speed control was out of whack causing the MG speed to go up and down like a yo-yo. The engineer and CO were getting impatient and told the EM to close the breaker on the next time it crossed sync, not realizing that it takes time for the big MG set breaker to close. By the time it closed, the the MG had already jumped to the 180 degree out position. So, it was the CO's fault.
I know a later reply, but to prevent motoring of the generator, most protection circuits have a reverse power protection relay that drops the breaker if the power in exceeds about 5% of the system capacity. This is why instead of matching speed, then phase, then closing the breaker, most sets are run slightly fast so when the phase passes 12:00 the breaker is closed and there is forward power generation. Otherwise a bounce against the grid will trip the protection when the power reversed on the bounce.
yes thx
Agreed...
I kid you not: here in Finland, in 2016 a drunken guy broke into a hydroelectric power plant and started pressing all and any buttons he could find. The end result was one blown up 1.5 megawatt generator. I'd love to have seen that. He should have taken a time machine and watch this video I guess!
Now that's a security video I'd like to see. :)
Hmm Finlad? 2016? Was tgat by chance the guy from the game called Infra?
Dang. Hope security has been greatly improved since then, especially now.
Why is there always a drunk guy involved any time some crazy stuff happens in Finland?
@@alouisschafer7212Because most guys in Finland are drunk most of the time. So any time it involves a guy, he's most likely also drunk.
as a PhD student in power systems, your videos keep me alive as i write my thesis
Awesome! :) I'm sincerely glad you're watching. Send me a copy when you finish it and GOOD LUCK!
@@Physicsduck yes, and I will use your videos to teach students about synchronizing. much better than reading textbooks! details
@@sb.sb.sb. Having taught in and ran an EE college power lab for over 2 years, can confirm that these are better than any textbook. Even Earl and Traister.
yea on how a simple system on a raspberry pi can do all of this without human error.
To Synchronize:
Same Voltage
Same Frequency
In fase
Fase order had to be right (L1-L1, L2-L2, L3-L3)
Always amazed to realize, that as a plant like this connects and ramps up its power output, _all the other plants on the grid back off by the same amount_ , keeping everything in balance.
Correct, however this just a 400kW turbine-generator.
And that (at least in Europe) other plants will be informed prior to the startup to avoid causing a voltage spike and causing a cascade failure because security systems would otherwise see it as a serious problem and switch off. Which could case other plants to notice a drop, consider it a possible short in the high voltage grid and to prevent damage, switch off plant output.
@@Dutch3DMaster I doubt anyone was informed of that 350kw startup. When we get a fault in our induction smelting we instantly offline about 1-4MW of load without any consequences for the grid. The grid provider once also dropped our whole plant to save an overloading connection on their part. This is why you want a big synchronized power grid as it can absorb more fluctuations.
@@exi I'm guessing the threshold for when planning needs to be done is dependent on the size and capacity of the other units nearby.
But, yeah. Did measurements on a 25MW turbine for a full day once and had to have full local control of the thing, ramping up and down, starting and stopping as we needed. Apart from a phone call to the grid controller basically letting them know that we were assuming full control of the plant for the day, there were no requirements of us to actually keep them posted on what we were doing and when. Though obviously the start-stop procedure was taken care of by the governor. We were the ones changed the wicket gate opening manually after it was hooked on.
@@Dutch3DMaster It wouldn't raise voltage on the grid? It would increase the grid frequency but the other generators will back off to maintain grid frequency
This video was enlightening! I never really thought about the force that the grid exerts on the generator, but I see just how crucial it is for the generator to be in sync. Connecting to the grid is like matching engine RPM when doing a clutch-less shift in a manual transmission. The generator is like the engine, with its RPM governed by a valve that controls the flow of some fluid. The grid has inertia, just like a moving car (albeit many many orders of magnitude more). When you shift in a car and the RPM of the input shaft doesn't match that of the output, then your engine is going to spin up or down as some of the kinetic energy of the car is transferred to it. The way you have to fine-tune the flow also reminded me of the process of tuning old pot-controlled analog televisions (back when analog signals were still broadcast) as you watched the image tear and scroll up or down the screen, trying to get the scan rates to sync up.
Another way to think about it is like trying to jump from one car to another car, while both of the cars are hurtling down the freeway at different speeds. Before you can safely jump from one car to the other, you have to get the cars right beside each other and traveling at just about the same speed. You have a very small margin of error, and Bad Things(tm) will happen if you slip and fall.
that is a perfect analogy between a non syncro vehicle and syncing a hydroplant. With both you have to get the whole process perfect and you have a few seconds to go to the next step.
Pretty good analogies actually! 😎
@@Taedrin That’s the most stupid analogy I’ve heard. If you know you know there’s no need to “dumb it down” more than it needs to… A second year electrician knows this smh 🤦♂️
@nameismetatoo4591 You also have to match the phase. In your analogy of a clutch-less shift that would be the gear teeth lining up.
I always enjoy watching people love what they do. My wife catalogs art for an auction house, and she loves it. I am a watchmaker, and I love it. We were both 40 when we started on these respective paths. Don't give up on a dream kids! It's never too late to start something new.
I started late as an apprentice and became a heavy duty journeyman mechanic at 36. I’m now considering going to university in engineering but it seems incredibly daunting and almost impossible. Your message gives me hope! Thank
I agree. I love watching watch-making videos for content as well as for the enthusiasm of guys like the Nekkid Watchmaker.
Cool video, which brings back two memories for me. First, as an electrical engineering student, I remember doing this in the power lab at school. Of course, the powerplant we were syncing was much smaller - maybe 100KW, powered by a large DC motor instead of water. Same principals though. Second was even earlier - in high school I worked as a draftsman at a local hydroelectric dam. Since I was interested in electrical engineering, the chief engineer at the dam took me under his wing. We went all over that dam, the powerplant, inside the control cabinets. One day we were out touring around when they took one of the 60MW generators offline, which we watched from down in the shaft gallery where the wicket gate control servo was located. Normally, these huge hydraulics move imperceptibly slow, but on shutdown (and I can only imagine, startup), I saw how quickly this huge mechanism could move. It was awesome.
Principles.
if you ever get the chance to visit glacier park or yellowstone.......... stop by fort peck dam in NE MT.... take a tour
im a "lake kid"..... so, ive been through the tour like 100 times LOL
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but the best one was the high school trip
not sure if its just normal now.... but we got to see the triple divider (splits the main "tube" into 3.... for the 3 turbines)
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never saw that on the 49 other times
and havent been back since.... as i kinda figure ive seen it all (pre-9/11... the short cut to the family farm was between the power houses and the transformer yard....they put a fence up)
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it looks like a bad ass security checkpoint...... but just google what ya need
specific dates and times...... and the proper ID (2 forms IIRC)
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my grandmother wrote a lot of the "script" they used (if not at least parts of it today)
took her lunches at the top of the surge tanks, on the roof, overlooking quite a bit of area!!!
its scary how fast large motors and generators can move.
"My butthole is doing an impression of a rabbit's nose."
You sir have gained a new subscriber off that line.
LMFAO, thank you! It's always good to have a man of culture join the fray.
@@Physicsduck Happy to be here. Hope you like some SALT in your comments, cause I'm here to laugh.
REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
he he he, live show starts in 5 minutes. You're welcome to hop in the discord and see just how deep the rabbit hole goes. discord.gg/KhTKWE3gCC I'm on every night at 10pm Eastern on the live channel.
That caught my attention so quick
Had to make sure someone in the comments caught this.
This takes me back to my Navy days onboard an Oliver Hazard Perry (FFG-7) frigate. As an Electric Plant Control Console operator, I got really good at synchronizing to "shore power" and picking up or removing the grid power. Four Stewart Stevenson V16 diesel engines capable of generaterating about 750 kW each.
Pretty much same here, but with 4 600-PSI steam turbine generators. Around 900 Kw each. There was a sign above the control console which said "Double-check! The National Power Grid WILL win the argument".
I used to help overhaul those v16 engines at SIMA mayport on those FFGs.
At my first command in Newfoundland, we had 900KW diesel generators. I got to sync them up to “shore power”, and take over the load for the building that absolutely could not lose power. Then sync up shore power to the genny and secure the diesel when the power from the island had stabilized. I remember being nervous has bell when I had to do alone before my petty officer came in,
Many many years ago i was with my highschool on a visit to hydroplant. That hydroplant has 4 generators, two 110MW and two 115MW.
It was in late 90s and they where synhronizing gens by the click of the mouse.
They had large grey enclosures (row 50m long) with hundreds of meters and levers, but that was only for emergency use. All operations where done by industrial PC, and all parameters where seen in real time. From water flow, rotor and stator temp, bearing temp, exciter gen power and output power.
What you want when you close the breaker is for the synchroscope to be going slowly in the fast direction (spinning clockwise). Then close the breaker at about 10 degrees from the top. This way it closes right at the top.
You want it slow in the fast direction because then when the breaker is closed, the machine will take on some load immediately. If it's moving in the slow direction (like it was in the video), the machine becomes a load on the grid at first (until he started loading it by opening the valves a bit more).
And as it takes load, the counter force generated by that slows the turbine down a bit because current flowing through the wires causes an opposing magnetic field. The more current you have, the stronger that field.
as a power engineer in concur that this is correct
Agree with you on the clockwise rotation, it's what we did on RN ships to bring the generators online and as you said it's because you want the oncoming gen to snatch a bit of load to prevent the engine being forced backwards. However we were trained to close the breaker at the 12 oclock position (later ships allowed you to hold the breaker over at 5 to the hour). We only had the sync going backwards if we were trying to parallel with the shore side power, i.e. shed the load off our generators. Will admit I wanted to break one of his arms as at one point he had both on the switchboard! Big no no
That first attempt was the worst sync job I’ve ever seen in 33 years running power generation! The 2nd was lucky. Your instructor taught you to do that?
The first attempt had the sync scope going much too quickly in the wrong direction (slow). You should have adjusted the speed to spin slowly (about the speed of a clock second hand) in the fast direction and waited until it was stable. Then you close the breaker about 3 minutes to 12 o’clock. The consequences of closing the breaker in the wrong position is devastating to the generator.
The second attempt was better but still rushed.
@Chris Boden, I had a friend of the family that has since passed on, who was on the beaches of Normandy running and synching the electric generators on the beach after the invasion. He told of how it took a bunch of times to get the gennies to all sync up, and how they kept crashing out of lock; all while all the brass sat there waiting for the power to come one! I never really appreciated the story, until watching you start up this one... It must have been a crazy scary time! His memories live on in me, and now you, my friend!
This is absolutely amazing. I have a very difficult time showing young PLC programmers who still don't understand the process control about peaking. This is a very fine example. Thank you.
Love these videos Chris, keep them coming. The sounds, the commentary, everything really. As a blind viewer, I love how you describe things and how the videos are produced. Can’t praise it enough. Brilliant! Keep it coming. 👍😁
Thank you sir! I'd never thought about blind viewers enjoying my content. I'll try and do better with my audio and descriptions!
@@Physicsduck i’ve always loved your channel, right back from the days when you used to take things apart and explain how they worked and even spin up some old hard drives and the like. Brilliant. 😂👍
but how do you type ? just curious
I know that feeling! When I was in the navy, I was electrician mate of the watch on a Knox class Frigate. The first time I brought up a generator to sync with shore power, cut in the generator, shift the load and open the breaker to shore power was the scariest, most exhilarating experience. Great job on the channel!
This is the video that got me instantly addicted to your channel.
Operators at the mill I worked at back in 1992 let me synchronize a 2 mega watt pelton wheel generator. The water valve opened manually and a deflection plate did the fine tuning on the generator rpm from the oil circuit breaker cell control panel, there were 2 incandescent light bulbs and a syncroscope like this set up.
The operator told me to operate the breaker close handle just before the scope needle was at the top of the dial.
Great video, thanks!
I love how you talk to the machine like you're a Techpriest from 40k. The Machine Spirit must be appeased!
I work with 7x 1065kW gas combustion engines, and I can assure that there is a lot of talking done to these engines and their controllers.
Granted there's generally a lot more expletives used, they can be very, very temperamental things. Each has its own personality/quirks and there is of course a problem child
"come on babyyyyy....."
You scared me on the first attempt to synchronize. Cool how that trip valve worked. A weird thing that I learned about hydroelectric generators is that they turn so slowly as compared to 1800 and 3600 rpm units that they require the excitation slip rings to be ground eccentric. This gives the carbon brushes slight movement so they don't stick in place despite spring pressure.
Yup mine runs at 164 rpm 44 pole and the brushes move a lot
Yeah, we have some units that are only 90 rpm and some that are 360 rpm.
@@forbesmathews89 44 pole must have been almost silent. To save my ageing brain, at 164, were they delivering 50 or 60 Hz.?
This brings back memories of my electrical apprenticeship, the class was split into 4 groups and each made, from a kit, a motor with a generator stacked on top. Most of the day was spent trying to sync the 4 sets together using the old Siemans Halsky method with lightbulbs, two bright and one dim. Eventually the room was synced and the teacher was congratulating everyone and he then leaned back on the wall...right onto the emergency power cutoff switch for the room, you can imagine what we said.
...a lot of words my 2 year old shouldn't learn?
I did it during my time at the university with a motor and a generator, and people have told me later I was the last of the communications students allowed to do that because the one after me has screwed up the phase sequence and the massive concrete block has jumped a little...
Excellent video, good explanation about the behaviour of the river.
Things that I didn't even know that I didn't know: That powering up a hydroelectric power plant could be exciting and nerve-wracking. Thank you for sharing your job with us.
Not hydro, but have done that for a bank of 4 400 KW diesel sets, so don't quite have the same bounce. To get the power pickup and prevent the reverse power drop, I was taught to run the generator a little fast by about 1/2 hertz. This way you get the slow 2 second rotation clockwise, and close about the 55 minute mark, so the phase pulls in, then as it was fast, will produce power upon closing, then open up the power. Learned this while in the Navy for going off shore power. Going back to shore power, the input to the syncroscope is reversed so the rotation is still clockwise by reducing the speed until shore power is about 1/2 HZ fast in relation to the diesels, then running parallel, so the shore power picks up some load, then throttles are set lower until the power off diesel drops to nearly zero, then the breaker opened for a no glitch transfer to shore power.
Great video. Check with the manufacture about the sync process and if you can run slightly fast (clockwise) and close on the approach to 12:00 for a good sync with some pick up of load and prevent drop out from reverse power. Some newer equipment has protection to prevent closing out of phase in addition to reverse power, and over current drops.
Came to see a power plant get started up, ended up rooting for an incredibly nervous technician doing it solo for the first time.
and his bunny nosing butthole
Thanks for letting us watch ! Made me think back of a visit we (a bunch of control engineers and technicians) made to a large coal fired powerstation. A visit to the control room was included and while we were listening to the chief engineer one of our buddies made a bee line to the console were the turbines rpm were controlled. And wow did that chief move quickly ! Don't know if it was his years on the high seas (most of them came from a merchant navy engine room job) speaking, but I've never heard someone cursing so eloquently. Mind you, all in good fun, we wouldn't dream of messing with the GigaWatts they were handling there. That was way before all the modern windturbines were put up, and even then the grid was a big 'cat-and-mouse' game so to speak, hate to think what it must be now, even with the aid of powerful computers etc.
I love how excited you are! Surfing a power plant, that would make some animation lol
I'm glad you enjoyed it! My whole world is getting to share this stuff with people. I want to help as many people as I can to get excited about science and engineering. Thank you for watching!
I do animation... and I am picturing this right now lol
I worked as assistant operator at Bull Run Hydro plant in Oregon back in the 1980s.The governors and controls were all hand operated .We were told to never overspeed at start up!The plant was built in 1913 what an experiance!
I've heard although never seen anything old enough to verify that the first generators were synchronized with a light bulb prior to even antique instruments. When the light bulbs are off there is no difference in potential between the generator and bus / load. When there is it is out of sync and at fully lit would be 180 out. When it was in sync some poor sap would manually close the gear. I build and maintain engine driven generators that produce more than this little hydro plant does but everything is automated now. They all have very fast smart protection relays on them and it all works great. I can't imagine being the person 100 years ago manually closing that gear while manually syncing a large generator. Definitely would make my butt pucker up every time. I'm sure Many a person was injured or killed by accidentally synching out of phase. Less an issue if it's just an induction generator but a synchronous will not be happy at all.
I've seen it in OLD books. Like 1880s old.
At school (1973) we had such a system as a practicum. The panel had 3 lights in a triangle configuration with ,only, the upper lamp on when the system was in sync. ...but as scholars we did change the wires so that it was on at 180 degree out of phase so when connecting to the grid the whole system shutdown with a enormous bang (and that was only a 3 kW system). So a 'not' happy generator is big understatement.
"I've heard although never seen anything old enough to verify that the first generators were synchronized with a light bulb prior to even antique instruments. " This is true. I've synced generators that had the syncroscope and the old school lights as a secondary indication.
i'm in the canadian navy, and if all else fails and we need to bring generators online, the ships have 2 little blinking lights and a whole lot of courage.
@@wyattroncin941 weve got them in the USAF as well always a liiittttle sketchy
Such a f.... amazing video for Electrical Engineers!!! Good job, man!
About 20 years ago I wrote a long description about starting a coal fired power plant. This was the synchronization of a 3600RPM 250MW steam turbine. Synching the machine, big or little, is always a high pucker factor moment. Hydro can be tougher because the machine is less responsive to control inputs.
Bring the turbine to match the system frequency and the voltage to match the system voltage and you're were we started this discussion. Match the generator phase angle to the system phase angle with not too great of a slip frequency. (I liked about 1 rev of the synchroscope in maybe 30-45 seconds meaning that the turbine speed differed from synchronous by about 1/2 RPM or less. Most of the regular operators weren't as patient to fiddle with the control valve and the boiler conditions would change so that the turbine would speed up or slow down.) The speed governor wasn't used for startup/run-up so that full arc admission could be used to heat the inlet of the turbine uniformly. This meant that the turbine speed was controlled by hand. Not too hard as long as the boiler is under control.
When the hand on the 'scope approaches the little mark at 12 o'clock put your hand on the main breaker control switch (BE sure to look at which way closes the breaker). You are now on the spot. Everybody in the control room and maybe throughout the plant will know if you screw up because the lights will dim, the floor will jump and the generator will make a noise like it just lifted a world record weight in the heavyweight class if you don't turn that handle at just the right time. People at other power plants may know it too if your machine is big enough and you screw up bad enough.
At the magic moment, turn the control. The 'scope pointer should come *gently* to a stop at the little mark, the lights should not blink nor the floor jump and no giant grunting noises should be heard. Goose the turbine valve just a little to pick up some load, check that all 3 phases are carrying current and that the voltage is OK. Start breathing.
The smallest machine I've synched was about 50MW, the largest was 650MW.
I am an ex-Navy sonar technician and retired Army 52E (prime power production specialist) and was hired to work around the west on the hydro-electric generators performing rebuilds, etc., if not for developing severe complications from Gulf War related problems, I would be doing it today. What a person in the electrical field shoots for besides a lineman or power plant operator/technician. Great job here! 🤙🤙
I've been doing hydro for 42 years and my biggest advise is to buy a multifunction generator protection relay. My favorite these days is the SEL 700G relay. The $3-4k cost is the best money you will ever spend on your hydro plant. It will protect your generator from any fault and give you the capability of full autosync . Good luck, small hydro isn't easy!
This is similar to how I feel when trying to sync an isolated 1500KVA generator back into the grid when it is struggling to hold sync long enough to close the switch. Such excitement and and the mild fear that sync drops before you close that switch by hand. I’ve only been there once or twice when it was wrong, and luckily I wasn’t the one closing the switch in these instances; it’s still pretty damn exciting to see those sparks and molten copper fly haha. Great video mate, I got exactly what I came for.
Learned about synchronizing in training and our instructor showed our class this video to give more physical insight into how the grid works. We work with portable generators with Deep Sea controllers but all in all still the same. Love coming back to watch this video every month or so to get a chuckle in your passion and get a refresher on sychronizing.
This video autoplayed while I'm multitasking at work, because I couldn't hit stop in time to continue my playlist of short circuiting power lines (they fascinate me) but man I'm so glad it did! Your commentary and enthusiastic energy is infectious, I love it!
I have no idea how I came across your videos on RUclips, but I find it amazing because I worked at the self same dams you are showing in your videos. I was there in mid 2010's era. This video brought back a bunch of memories. I've operated that very panel to get that generator in sync with the grid. That generator was the most reliable of the three plants I worked at on that river at the time.
Messing with the Kaplan Turbine blade angles on that generator was interesting and could make for a good video if you're up to it. Finding the angle was fun because you had to utilize a stroboscope and match the flashes per minute to the RPM. However, if you jammed them into a limit, it was not fun to unjam. The process was shut down the generator, wait for the generator to completely stop, get the ratcheting socket wrench, jam the step stool into the angle switch on the panel (you can see the angle switch in the video) to engage the direction opposite of what it is jammed into, then you pray as you ratchet on that welded nut on top of the motor that's embedded into the generator shaft because once you set that thing free, the motor for the blade angle starts spinning at some gnarly RPM with your ratchet in tow, you need to dislodge the ratchet and then make a run to the panel to disengage the angle switch before it jams into its other limit. Things were all sorts of janky working there, but I enjoyed what I did. It was a learning experience.
Good video though. Nice to see this equipment still in use.
I got to switch turbine generators 40 odd years ago as a cadet on a containership under the supervision of the 1st assistant engineer. First start the off line turbine generator, synchronize it to the on line TG, transfer the load to the just started one and then shut down the now off line TG. It was pretty freaking cool as a 21 year old kid, I didn't have to worry about tieing to the grid but I still could have blacked out the ship. Also, speed control on steam turbines was way easier than wicket gates and the river. Great stuff!
Just found this vid, I've heard about the syncroscope before but it's fun actually seeing one in action at a power plant.
I'm glad you enjoyed it. There's a lot more powerplant videos on this channel that go into technical details of operations.
As an electrical engineer and general scientist, I have just learned more from this 7:56 video and the audible enthusiasm than I might have learned from trying to be a hydro engineer via schooling. Than you sir, for a explanatory and working job well done.
All the best decisions are made in manual mode. Also love the button nameplates just being sharpie.
I love how the SYNC switch is labelled "IN" and "OFF". I smile every time I see it.
I used this video as a reference for my roleplay character bringing a coal-fired steam generator online for the first time. Great stuff, and thank you for making this video!
SWEET I love it when the synchroscope meter needle goes lines up with the top mark, the sync lights are out than SNAP the contactor gear close and goes online AWESOME :)
Thank you sir! :) I'm glad you enjoyed it! There's a lot more coming.
Good catch of the null, I've paralleled 1500KW Onan diesel generators to the grid at just a few degrees out of phase... major pucker factor! Well done Chris.
All INFRA players know that feeling when you activate that piece of engineering! Great job! 🤩👍
I was thinking about that when I was watching this!!
My friend was in Nigeria, for the commissioning of a water pumping station. When he realised that the gigantic Russian motor was starting under the pump load and DOL start, he warned that only 2 things could happen. Either the pump would start, or the alternators at the power station would stop.
Unfortunately, the later happened, killing more than 20 people at the power station. Their attitude was just, Oh Well.
Awesome Job! That final kiss of the valve actuator did the trick. The MAGIC moment when the the synchroscope sat on zero . . . NOW ! I shouted outloud. Ha ha, I couldn't help myself. Terrific video. Congratulations! Next, valve full open, and you're online! The most honest excitement I've had in quite a while. Many thanks!
I know the feeling. At my work we used to have a 20KW UPS and a 75KW diesel generator. The UPS ouput was feeding the most important servers and uplink equipment at all times, while the UPS itself was fed by the grid under normal operation.
In case the grid went down, the grid was automatically disconnected from not only the UPS, but from the entire buidling. Then the diesel generator started, and after it ran at 50Hz, it automatically switched to/fed the UPS input. So all important equipment was never left in darkness in case of a power outage. Great design.
But there also was a switching panel that would allow you to connect the rest of the building to the diesel generator as well. This was a manual operation without risk (as the grid was switched off from the building).
The scary part: in case the grid would come back online (while the diesel generator was feeding the entire office building), there was a LED on the switching panel that had the same job as the synchroscope meter in this video. If the grid and diesel generator were in sync, you were allowed to manually switch from diesel to grid. I never dared to do so. The two times this happend I have chosen the safe way. That is: disconnect the diesel generator before connecting the entire building to the grid again.
Sounds like a great system! So is there some storage to power the UPS before the generator kicks in?
A 20 kw UPS ????
I was stationed on Forbidden Planet and was one of two that could get the Krell power station online. As I joke one day I fed the output back into the input.No one ever spoke to me again. Loved your video.
7:56 minutes of awesome! I forgot about everything at work and was glued to that gauge! Even I felt relief when it synced!
That was fun. Thanks for the video. At first I was thinking, why is the freq wandering like that, but than like you explained, you are dealing with a pulsing wave of water. Fun with the physics involved there.
At lease with an engine driven generator, it'll groan in to phase. When you're dealing with literal TONS of moving water...OOF, that could get real ugly and expensive if something goes wrong.
I have retired from working 34 years in steam electric power plants with most of those years as a steam plant operator. Steam Turbine units take many hours to start up, but synchronizing the unit to the line is basically the same procedure once the steam turbine is near synchronous speed. The incoming voltage of the unit must match the line voltage. The turbine must be running just a little faster than the frequency of the system, so that the synchroscope is rotating slowly in the fast direction. Then close the circuit breaker when the synchroscope needle is pointed at the mark on the top. I have done this many times. In modern power plants this whole process is done by an automatic synchronizer device. This old hydro plant could have a modern automatic synchronizer installed that would automatically do all the items shown in this video.
Almost the same for me. 32 years in the nuclear business, +20 years as a turbine operator. Thankfully we had automatic synchronizers. Otherwise I would have filled my pants every time we connected the turbines/generators to the grid. 😁
Sure but once the unit synchronises any decent control system (that isn’t more than 40 years old) will bump the control valves to give block load of around 10%. In the meantime all the mechanical commissioning engineers will be moaning and freaking out about turbine temp, reheat flow and expansions … 😂😂😂
That's cool!
I am a steam plant operator now. Did my work term at a thermal plant, and I work now at a refinery which has a cogen. The thermal plant company wanted us to manually sync to the grid before switching it in to auto and we always sped it a little bit higher than the grid when syncing. That plant was old though, had a hybrid pneumatic/electronic control system. The refineries cogen was all autosynced. Auto start too, press one button on the DCS and just watch it go through crit speeds, heat soaks, and syncing, to full MW all on its own.
I learned with the lights. A SynchroScope was High-Tech. 600-PSI Naval Engineering from 1969.
I'm no electrical engineer. Electricity is pretty much just magic to me. I have never once thought about what a power plant operator might be *doing* at work. And I've gotten by so far, thank you very much, without knowing that power plants had to sync with the grid like this. And yet... this was one of the most dramatic scenes I've ever seen play out. Amazing. It's probably no coincidence that RUclips showed me this random video while I was going down a filmmaking-and-drama video rabbit hole
This is easily my favorite video on all of RUclips. Bless ya, Chris.
Thank you! :)
Mr . Chris Boden , I liked to see you , acting in the frequency and in the tension and doing the parallel . Here in Brazil i worked operating Westinghouse Generators and General Electric . Hugs from here in Brazil .
I used to work with a guy who's job in the Navy was to supervise the connection of his Battleship to the Shore supply, this required close monitoring of the phase or major fireworks were the result .
Your co-worker was exaggerating his importance a bit. Bringing up and taking down generators while at sea is one of the FIRST watch qualifications that a Newbie Electrician's Mate will learn. Ditto for paralleling the Ship's generators with Shore Power, as this is something which is done whenever the ship enters port for more than a day or two. In other words, routine.
However, he is correct that screwing it up is really hard on the equipment. The turbine generators make a really horrible sound when they get into an argument with the Grid and just about stall. It's not really difficult to get everything in synch, just requires adherence to procedures and watching what you are doing.
I work in a powerplant, 99.99% of time its a piece of cake. .01% of the time we have story time. The number of people that are afraid of my place of work is unreal when we give tours.
"That turbine behind me WILL sync to the grid ..." -- Now that sounds like an AWSOME video. =) (perhaps better done from some distance however)
That is called 'generator tries its damnedest to go into low earth orbit.' Every case I have ever heard of resulted in Very Big Expensive Things going through some combination of the roof and walls of the building.
@@randacnam7321 A Georgia power plant did it about a decade ago because someone wired the unit wrong after an overhaul. It did hit the roof when it broke free of the floor. The Detroits we had a work could be synced to each other but not to the grid under most conditions. We had auto and manual settings but never had the spinning meter like he had. Ours you just watched the dials and the lights. Second time they go out and stay off was when you closed the breaker. Lot of fun if you have to do it by hand as they were spring operated and motor driven normally. IF the motor failed, you had a jacking lever to charge the spring, and the you tripped it closed. Another rod was used to trip it open. All of which made sounds like it was going to explode. As we really didn't need it, normal operation was on one generator only. If we needed to change generators, we'd just shut one down after starting the other. Then put the new unit on line.
I once saw a 5MW auxiliary Generator syncing it’s Motor to the grid.
I’ll tell ya: Cotton can indeed rust! Boy, I shit my pants as this beast atomized itself in the process. The engineer doing the syncing had a face paler than a dead afterwards, worst day of his career I guess.
Me and my coworkers could pull out all of our wires again few days later as the whole station needed a renovation after the accident .
I think you mean the (turbine driven) generator WILL CONNECT to the grid. Being in sync when it connects is the preferred, less expensive scenario.
@@wesleyhurd3574
His point is that once the operator connects it, it will of course be connected but it (the generator) WILL there upon sync or die trying. The turbine or other powering mechanism, and shaft or gearbox, etc. tend to be left to their own devices….
Fascinating stuff, thanks for sharing!
If I understand right, you're able to tune the output voltage (therefore power output) of the turbine by adjusting the input power of the exciter. You mentioned in another video that an output of 250kw is considered a good day, 300kw a record, why not just crank up the exciter power to output as much power from the turbine as you want?
@ By increasing the excitation voltage you only increase the reactive power output (var) of the generator which drives the power factor down. You generally don’t want the power factor to be too low. Real power (W) is only increased through higher torque on the generator shaft (e.g. more energy from water flow).
Hope this helps.
I worked for many years in the construction industry building power stations and dams, I had never seen the process of starting up a turbine that was a very interesting video.
Love it. I had a 12-71 Detroit generator that was rated for 350KW, 3-phase 240 and it was LOUD too! 😂
Like all Detroits it leaked oil everywhere, but that Dry-Sleeve made rebuilds easy!
Incredibly cool! I work with semiconductor active front end units that sync to the grid the easy way, by just generating an AC wave at the correct frequency. It's fascinating to see the old way of doing things. Certainly much more exciting :D
This triggered a couple of old memories. The first is when Ed Laxson (owner of Laxson Electric) told us about the time when he as an apprentice helped re-wire a generator after the city's engineer came in drunk and flipped the switch when it wasn't synced properly (back in the "three light bulb" days of synchronization). It ruined the generator and they had to "re-wind" it. Except that the windings were copper bars and he had to climb into the generator and bend the bars using a torch. This had to have happened sometime in the late '40s.
The other thing was a friend of mine who bought the powerplant on the Duck River in Columbia, Tennessee back in the '90s or early '00s, and spent a year trying to get Duck River Electric to agree to buy his power. He finally got approval the day before the Duck River had (yet another) massive flood which completely overtopped the powerplant.
I did get to tour the control room before this happened. It was pretty cool.
The flood convinced him to get rid of the powerplant.
I always wondered how you go from running at no load to generating power, that's pretty sweet that you just let er rip!
Once you get in sync you just give her hell and get things moving before it falls off. This one really doesn't like running at low. I'm glad you got to learn something new :)
Yup, once you're locked into grid frequency, you just throttle up. The grid restrains you, so RPM's won't increase, but the harder you push on the grid frequency, the more power you push out.
Chris, you’re a saint. Thank you for all the time and energy you put into these educational videos. I would love to have a full length conversation with you just to pick your brain. You’re a rockstar my man. Thank you!
Thank you sir. I appreciate you :) If you'd like to chat, the best place to find me is in the Discord. discord.gg/5vRJ7JTpHn
In general it is a good idea to get close to synchronisation and to add some frequency to the generator before trying to sync. Make sure the synchroscope is going only clockwise. This ensures, that the generator won't fall into reverse power right after synchronisation. Reverse power will trip the protective relay quickly if there is one.
I was wondering about that. I've always seen "slow in the fast direction" as one of the prereqs for syncing for that exact reason.
Slow in the fast direction. Don't turn on the synchroscope bl until you're close to 60Hz,
Yes, our professor told us about the same thing, when the generator is connectded to the grid, the sudden load induced on it causes it ti slow a bit and reduce the output frequency of AC.
Otherwise the fisherman who stayed at home is wondering why the lights are blinking
Thanks for posting this. I've been in power control centers where they had the synchronous indicator, though the ones I saw were more like a cats-eye indicator than a meter. But I never happened to be there when they were phasing and connecting power. Very cool.
I used to synchronise 500MW coal fired units in the UK using a synch trolley. 50hz over here, - the unit operators used to hand over to the engineer to excite the rotor and take control of the governor! 🙂. Synch was across a 400KV CB onto the grid 😁. Now work with CCGT’s and total auto synch! Not sure if any of the operators would have the courage to do a manual synch! 😆. We also synchronised them with the synch scope going clockwise - pushing out on the grid to avoid reverse power trips! 😎👍
When I was an apprentis sperky an old timer told me of an ancient power plant where you stood at the end of a row of generators each flywheel had one spoke painted white, when they were all in line you pressed the switch.....and yes that was a long time ago....
As a guy that started out doing pipeline construction. Moved to building and renovating fresh water and sewer pump stations, along with water treatment plants. This was exciting as fuck to watch. So interesting. I've always wanted to build a dam. Hopefully one day!
Love it! Have never seen a hydro plant come up and sync to the grid before!!
As an Electronics Tech/Engineer, I work on the other side of our electrical outlets... Mostly. Utility level... blows my mind.
More excited than the alternator!
Beautiful video!
My grampa was an electrical engineer working on hydro plants in Canada during the 70's and 80's during the height of the building related to the Columbia River Treaty. Back before they had automatic systems that could do this startup and sync, it was done the same way as you show, except the generators were 500MW units. He experienced what happens when an operator connects a turbine to the grid while the frequency is off by 1-2Hz. The bang as the unit is forced into sync could be heard and felt throughout the entire dam structure.
Wow, this takes me back. A long time ago I was a Merchant Navy Engineer. I loved bringing a ships alternator online.
Having started the engine (750hp diesel) I would then tweak the governor to match the revs to the already online alternator(s) as indicated by the frequency gauges. Having got the revs (frequency) very close I would then start nudging the governor to very gently match the phase. This was done by watching the phase clockdial. This guage showed the phase angle between the two supplies, When the pointer was at the top the phase angle was zero. But the rotational inertia of the diesel was an issue, so I only closed the connection if the pointer was moving very slowly through zero. A lovely sense of achievement would then be had through knowing that I had successfully manipulated many hundreds of kilowatts that needing very gentle finessing.
I suppose the only, but very big, difference is that I only had to worry about the very predictable rotational inertia of a diesel engine. I didn't have to worry about thousands of tons of water slopping about.
Thanks for sharing the experience.
Always laughed at the DROOP setting , parallel gen sets Chief would say You tighten the droop she snaps the shaft..... Watching is fun, to go to work in the hole is long gone.
i love this guy's passion for this kind of thing, it's people like him who have the drive to teach the next generation and impart in them just how fucking amazing all of the technology around us is and why it's important to know about it
You get it :) You EXACTLY get it.
Really cool seeing how this is done. Also surprising to me how accurate the game "Infra" was at simulating this process. The game missed out on the water surging issues, but seems to have gotten the rest right. Infrastructure is cool.
One of my favourite games
Same
This is a great video. I’ve heard of this process, but actually seeing it makes it more real. I have an interest in understanding the whole story of what happened at Chornobyl NPP. Part of that story has to do with understanding not just reactor side of the equation but also electricity generation side, specifically the turbines. One of the issues that a specialized crew was brought in for was to measure the vibration of the turbines.
No matter the industry, we all talk to our control panels like we are trying to get our date into the back seat of our Dad’s sedan at the drive in.
Great! I used to work for Scottish Hydro-Electric as their telecoms manager. We had 50 hydro stations across the country, all but one remote controlled via ‘my’ network of microwave, fiber and leased lines! They ranged from small low head plants like yours through to around 10 MW. Only the biggest - a pumped storage 300 MW plant was manned, the others were dispatched from a central generation control room (and backup)
Love to hear the tone of the hum changes everytime the frequency increases. Actually in 1:36, you already get the European frequency
So if I understand this right:
1. Open the wickets (a sort of cylindrical throttle valve made of swing doors arranged in a circle) to start the turbine spinning.
2. The generator is actually an alternator, some electricity has to go in for other electricity to come out, which is how voltage is controlled. A device called an "exciter" is what makes/handles that ingoing electricity. I'm a car and airplane mechanic; my alternators get their field current from a lead acid battery, not sure about you power plant types.
3. Frequency and phase are RPM and instantaneous position of the generator's rotor. So it not only has to be turning at the right speed, but at the correct radial position. Before tying into the grid it is the operator's responsibility to match these things very closely with the grid, because you're Knight Rider backing KITT out of the truck at highway speed and dumping the clutch in first gear at the bottom of the ramp means a very broken Trans Am.
4. Once you're tied to the grid, the waveform on the grid will keep you in step. Basically you're an engine coupling up with a big freight train, the rest of the system locks your rotor speed and voltage, opening the wickets farther means more torque on the shaft, which the generator turns into amperage. Torque translates to amps. Grid voltage times amps means watts. Or hundreds of kilowatts.
5. If you are a load rather than a source, you will "fall off" the grid via some automated system or other to keep you from being a problem for everybody else.
6. The PLC or "autopilot" will control the exciter and/or wickets to match the demand from the grid attempting to maintain the standard voltage.
How'd I do?
I believe when he shuts off his power plant others in the areas have enough capacity to sustain a load without this one being on. It’s always connected to the US system. If there was a total power failure when multiple power plants go out then he would be really screwed cause it’s hard recovering from a black out.
This could all be lies and I'd have no idea, but I love this explanation. I'm about to watch the video again with this newfound (and hopefully true) background as context
@@damonabets3779 Yeah he calls it a 350 kilowatt generator at the end, which is enough to power a small neighborhood. The rest of the power grid might not have even noticed this thing turn on.
Exciting! Love these series of videos
Thank you! :) There's more coming!
Exciting to follow along with indeed! That first shot of the water rushing in with the turbine spin-up sound was great
As a ship’s engineer we do this a lot. Sometimes once or twice a watch (a watch is normally 4 hours) instead of matching the speed of the water in a River you are dialing in the speed of a Diesel engine. Same principle though. Though most ships have automated syncing and buss ties now, almost everybody learns to do it manually as you have done in the video. Cool video.
Thanks for sharing that content and your enthusiasm with us.
Thank you for watching! I'm sincerely glad you enjoy it. :) There's thousands of other videos on here of pretty much the same thing. I'm here to Educate, Inspire, and Entertain. Welcome to the weird! :)
@@Physicsduck If I've understood correctly, the role of the PLC is to trip the turbine, should the voltage/frequency deviate from preset bounds for a certain amount of time, right? What else does it do, if applicable?
Also, is this a Francis or a Kaplan turbine on that setup?
A big diesel electric generator in a trailer truck gets put on line for the first time. Somewhere there was a mix-up in wiring the phases or the synchro scope. When the breaker was closed, the whole trailer rolled over onto it's side.
I hauled a couple of those to grocery stores, they were stored at the DC, and we were dispatched like the regular store runs. Had to send a technician to connect them and start them. Could run the store and most of the neighbourhood.
I learned something here.
That's the whole idea :)
Many years ago (circa 1950) I spent several hours over a couple of years watching my dad operate a power plant (Horse Mesa Dam) on the Salt River, AZ. Memory is fading, but it took longer than this power plant to start up the 25 HZ turbines. Now, of course, they are remotely operated from another location in Phoenix, AZ, vicinity.
25 Hz (the US grid is 60 Hz), or 25 kW?
Hertzh : steadily rising
Slow Fast meter: wheeeeeeee!
Talk about a kid in a candy store! Your enthusiasm and love of the field is contagious.
"oh mom.. i got intenet again... :-) " i was going like "carful now.." and im on the other side of the planet LOL!
LMFAO, well I appreciate your support. :)
This always fascinates me. I have done this with a few small generators with some success and some disasters. I have my lights on a panel for hurricanes and when one generator needs to go down for maintenance I have more luck switching for a second or two so the house and facilities don't have to do down to switch gennies. Some of the diesel 1800 gensets don't seem to work well with 3600 modern things and managing throttle and voltage is difficult so I bought a couple Wilmar Reverse Power Relays (720TDX and a 710TD-7X) a couple years ago to try and automate some voltage parallel functions but lost interest as the Solar LiFePO4 Inverter system is about to come online and I can just import generator power in a number of ways. Subscribed!
I just watched the startup of a 100MW gas turbine generator last week and it had the same meter and two lights. Funny how things don't change. This is possibly the oldest gas turbine generator still in operation, late 50's. It made a lot more noise than yours.
It makes sense that any power plant would have a similar meter, need to be at 60hz to go online no matter what type of power source
Modern synchroscopes are different, but those are about 20-30 years old at most. For something like a century this kind of synchroscope was pretty much all you got for this task.
@@somethingsomething404 Yes. With addition that in US its 60Hz and here in Europe its 50Hz...
Cheers!
Ew. That seems like a gross device. Are there really giant diesel turbines running parts of the power grid? That seems incredibly inefficient and dirty.