Carl Denk wrote:
> Far from an expert in this area, but: I heard something recently, that on=
ce
> that switch was thrown to bring the generator online to the grid, the the
> electromagnetic forces took over. If the generator was trying to run too
> fast (governor set higher RPM), the load increased slowing the generator
> and bringing into phase, and if too slow, then the load was lessened and
> speed increased. There is probably a better explanation of the phenomena.

Yes, that's essentially correct. The entire grid and all of the synchronous
machines (generators and motors) attached to it function as though all thos=
e
shafts were physically linked together.

> The main generating station compares the clock to a standard time piece,
> and adjusts their speed to provide us with correct time within a second
> or so.

Well, there's no one "main" station, but the larger stations do adjust thei=
r
energy-input "throttles" periodically (on the order of minutes) in order to
keep the the grid's cycle count over the long term in agreement with UTC.
They don't worry too much about short-term variations, but a wall clock tha=
t
counts line cycles will be a couple of orders of magnitude more accurate ov=
er
the course of a year than a crystal-based one.

-- Dave Tweed
--=20
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