from the somebody-went-ape-shit-over-this dept.
Original URL: http://www.cnet.com/news/monkey-knocks-out-a-whole-nations-power/#ftag=CAD590a51e
The announcement on Facebook was sober.
"At 1129 hours this morning [Tuesday]," it said, "a monkey climbed on the roof of Gitaru Power Station and dropped onto a transformer tripping it. This caused other machines at the power station to trip on overload resulting in a loss of more than 180MW from this plant which triggered a national power blackout."
Such were the words of KenGen, Kenya's national power company, after an incident that seems to veer between the disastrous and the comical.
A monkey got into a power station and accidentally blew the power for the whole country. This was less a military coup than just sheer monkeying about.
KenGen says that power has now been restored. It added on Facebook: "KenGen power installations are secured by electric fencing which keeps away marauding wild animals. We regret this isolated incident and the company is looking at ways of further enhancing security at all our power plants."
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 11 2016, @10:46AM
At the rate America is going, I wonder how long until we have one of this guy's cousins (man) doing the same :)
(Score: 3, Funny) by art guerrilla on Saturday June 11 2016, @11:38AM
did the monkey have a wrench ? ? ?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 11 2016, @09:30PM
Just the other night a driver took out a power pole, we've already made it! HIGHFIVES ALL AROUND!
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Saturday June 11 2016, @10:49AM
really this is just an example of what happens when you don't have any redundancy built into your system. the only thing to see here is that management has been cutting corners and likely pocketing the cash.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Saturday June 11 2016, @11:04AM
Redundancy saved our ass when working in the refinery... a rat got into the switchgear room and thought the high voltage wiring powering the tank farm would make a tasty treat. One power buss tripped. The other took over.
Upon investigation as to how this could have possibly happened, we discovered the remains of the rat. I saw photos of the damage as part of my training. I could not make out the rat, but someone who was far better at this kind of stuff had collected enough evidence to pin it on a rat. All I saw was soot and splattered metal.
It was common knowledge buzzards would alight onto power poles, especially pole pigs ( transformers ), stretch their wings too far, and start fires as their burning carcass fell off the pole.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 11 2016, @02:20PM
I guess computers have their bugs, refineries have their rats, and power plants have their monkeys.
The next time my power goes out I'm going to blame it on a 'monkey' just like we blame software problems on bugs.
(Score: 2) by TheGratefulNet on Sunday June 12 2016, @04:31AM
furthermore, we debug programs.
I guess they have to dechimp it.
we all have our albatrosses, I guess... (some with wafers, too!)
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
(Score: 3, Funny) by JNCF on Saturday June 11 2016, @04:47PM
It was common knowledge The Mighty Buzzard would alight onto power poles, especially pole pigs ( transformers ), stretch His Icarusian wings too far, and start fires as His burning carcass fell off the pole bringing much-needed hellfire and damnation down upon the unworthy mass of refinery workers below (for He is a dark and vengeful god).
FTFY?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 12 2016, @12:00AM
Some folks who thought about it a moment or 2 figured out that if you give them an alternative place to perch, [osprey-watch.org] they'll go for that.
Some folks even take additional measures [osprey-watch.org] to dissuade the critters from coming near the live stuff.
Page [osprey-watch.org]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Informative) by Aiwendil on Saturday June 11 2016, @12:21PM
Actually - this is what happens when you have a redundancy that is properly set up..
Just a quick back-of-the-envelope:
Kenya Grid Size ~ 2500MWe
Kenya Grid frequency = 50Hz
Size of station lost = 180MWe
180 / 2500 = 0.072 (7.2%)
50 * (1 - 0.072) = 46.4
So, the grid dropped to 46.5Hz almost instantly. Most (50Hz-)turbines suffers damages at below 49Hz, and more durable (some hydropower basically) can take down to about 46Hz..
In the first second after this event all their non-hydro shut down to protect itself - leaving them with only 35% of their grid (hydro), this will cause their grid frequency to drop quite a bit below 20Hz and making even the hydro shut itself down..
If you had a badly set up redundancy (ie - on that tries to keep stuff alive at all cost) you would have ended up with loss of most power generating capacity until you could get new generators, and this to only supply the country with electricity for another 2-15minutes (without a blackout you can't shut down stuff fast enough to not cause enough damage in the turbines to make the protection shut it down, resulting in more shutdowns, and you have an escalating brownout at the point where a blackout would probably be unavoidable)..
It is much better to just have the grid shut down, segment it, and then reboot it segment by segment.
The main problem here is that it was the transformer that was taken out, any other part and the system could basically have "coasted" down for long enough for reserves (including shutting down biggest consumers) to kick in and keep the grid alive (this is the normal emergy shutdown sequence, and also normal way to deal with excessive peaks).
(And in case you wonder "why not just keep it constantly overpowered", going above 50.1Hz normally ends you up in undefined terrority and stuff will shut itself off - a 50Hz grid is only intended to operate between 49.9 and 50.1Hz)
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Sunday June 12 2016, @01:24AM
What you are talking about is "failsafe," not "redundancy."
And it doesn't sound like a particularly good failsafe, if the line frequency is allowed drop and force turbines to shutdown instead of shedding load in isolated areas so that the rest of the grid can stay up.
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Sunday June 12 2016, @06:52AM
(First up - seems like I remembered some figures wrong, tolerance for 50Hz-turbines is 47.5Hz for normal turbines and 45Hz for robust turbines - the argument is still valid however since the drop was [relativly] huge - seems like their grid only can take some 120MW of instant loss)
Redundancy without failsafe is harmful (the failsafe should trigger on all paths of redudancy) - which kinda was my point.
All electrical grids (of non-neglible size) are [partly] redundant by nature simply enough because otherwise service and upgrades would be impossible without disconnecting entire regions (generation is another issue - that you can't really have redundant in the sub-5min timeframe, and that only with preparation for extreme events)
Loadshedding takes a couple of seconds to kick in and another couple of minutes to have significant effect (you need to shed load carefully - since some system will shed themselves automatically) - protection circuits are a lot faster (depending on where you are it varies - but the normal requirement is less than 3ms) - and due to pesky things like loadshedding being issued via slow systems (offsite network) any order to shed load will come in too late (kenya is 0.0035lightseconds long (3.5light-ms), so in worst case you have at least that time before the order to shed loads are issued - by that time the protection circuits are already done).
But yes, if the drop only was down to about 47.5Hz the grid would have segmented itself and dropped the areas with excessive load - since that would have been within tolerance (and down to about 49.0Hz it would have shedded load only and not segmented itself, at 49.5Hz only increased generation/import))
(All in all this is a great example if why one doesn't want big units in small grids - is their grid was only 50% bigger (or station 33% smaller) this would have been a local blackout only)
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Saturday June 11 2016, @08:14PM
Also, not knowing your backstop [tacticalu.com] (item 4) before choosing to punch that monkey.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Saturday June 11 2016, @10:53AM
Unfortunately, the electric fence was powered by the transformer, so now there is no way to stop an infinite queue of monkeys from perpetuating the problem. Therefore, the grid can never be restarted.
TFS neglected to mention that the monkey survived.
Master of the science of the art of the science of art.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 11 2016, @11:36AM
Pretty much like in Fukushima
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Saturday June 11 2016, @02:55PM
So we don't need the infinite supply of monkeys. Hey, that was fun. Let's do it again!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 11 2016, @10:56AM
I understand if some small backwards mom-and-pop company uses a 3rd party for official announcements but a fucking national power company? Sounds like these guys aren't on top of their game. Makes me wonder whether the explanation for the blackout is true... Also it seems these days you can't even take a crap without logging onto Failbook.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by SunTzuWarmaster on Saturday June 11 2016, @12:45PM
My local area was recently hit by a tropical storm. The city/county/police/emergency response all have websites and make announcements there (in addition to the state webpage which redirects to the local ones). That said, the postings to NextDoor and Facebook were:
1 - synchorized
2 - easily readable on mobile device (especially relevant in the event of power loss)
3 - the same announcements as posted elsewhere
4 - push notifications to my streams
The alternative is either "rapidly refreshing the city/county/police webpages" or "subscribe to the RSS feeds of the various places". I hate Facebook and I try to avoid it, but it was the 2nd-best way on keeping in contact with citizens (1st is AM radio).
(Score: 2) by Entropy on Wednesday July 06 2016, @11:56AM
It's Kenya. You know, the country that gave us Obama Hussein.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 11 2016, @12:06PM
How far does one have to read the post to find out which friggin' country's power was knocked out? I quit somewhere after the 4th line.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 11 2016, @01:48PM
You must have skipped the 3rd line:
Such were the words of KenGen, Kenya's national power company, after an incident that seems to veer between the disastrous and the comical.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 11 2016, @02:31PM
That's where Barack Obama was born! I have absolute proof!!!
- Donald Trump
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 11 2016, @03:07PM
But that doesn't have to mean it was in Kenya. National(/state owned) power companies can own power generation facilities in other countries.
For example Vattenfall AB(Swedens state owned power company) own the Thanet Wind Farm(the worlds third largest offshore wind farm) of the coast of England. Vattenfall also own(and partially own) a bunch of other power plants in Germany, Poland, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Denmark and Finland.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 11 2016, @04:10PM
Wow ... what a contrary little monkey you are today. Any relation to the monkey that knocked out the power in Kenya?
(Score: 4, Informative) by Entropy on Saturday June 11 2016, @05:42PM
Kenya. Same place Barack Hussein Obama was born.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 13 2016, @09:31PM
This monkey is hungry for power.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 11 2016, @01:26PM
For another sequel to "Oceans Eleven".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 11 2016, @02:09PM
When you monkey around with electricity
(Score: 3, Interesting) by gOnZo on Saturday June 11 2016, @03:04PM
Centralized power generation with large & complicated distribution networks were the pattern of development in the 'developed' nations. Partly, this was a mater of evolution - power stations were expensive, so were located to serve large urban centers. Power was then 'distributed' to adjacent neighbouring areas. Eventually, even most rural areas had service. As serviced area grew, and outages affected ever larger populations, the redundancy was required to provide stability. Part of the required redundancy was achieved by connecting adjacent generation 'zones' so an outage in one could be serviced by generation in an adjacent zone. Complicated protection mechanisms were put in place between zones to automatically segment the grid in the event of catastrophic failure (as occurred here). It was failure/poor design of components of this grid-tie system that caused the Northeastern US blackout of 2003 [wikipedia.org].
I should mention that another theory/driving force behind this pattern of development is that it is/was easy to monetise. You can borrow large sums of cash to build mega power projects, so the people that could did (Westinghouse, GE, JP Morgan, etc.), and reaped great benefit from supplying / controlling electric power.
Of 'traditional' sources, hydro electric generation produces relatively cheap power, though at large up-front cost and significant environmental impact (Three Gorges Dam [wikipedia.org]). Nuclear has huge installation costs, long-term waste, and significant concerns security concerns in any unstable area of the world. Coal has a large impact on air pollution, and local health. Gas creates air pollution, but is comparatively benign, and Kenya has reserves (Kenya Eyes Domestic Coal & Gas for new power plants [reuters.com]).
With the advent of renewable power sources there is the possibility of a new paradigm. Instead of exporting the pattern of development followed by the 'developed' nations, it is possible to apply more appropriate current technologies to a more de-centralized power generation / distribution system. Apply central generation, redundancy, distribution in largest centers (where it makes sense), but deploy alternative technologies to provide redundancy/stability in smaller centers & rural areas, instead of attempting to 'bridge' the entire nation (and usually adjacent nations) into one massive inter-dependent grid, where a failure in one takes everyone down.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 11 2016, @07:02PM
Is the monkey OK?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 11 2016, @08:05PM
Additionally:
Some may remember that an Ubuntu release was named Vivid Vervet.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 12 2016, @10:28AM
Should be spanked.