One of our professors once told us a nice story. There was a power plant which went online controlled by a computer which decided to connect the generator 180° out of phase. The generator liked that so much that it jumped 2 metres up. Unfortunately the clearance above it was less than that so it effectively demolished the building.

Im a lineman in Europe and that bit about hearing the 50hz humm (or 60h in your case) in your dreams was too real XD

"Opening the wicket gate" gives a whole new meaning to the British phrase "batting on a sticky wicket"!

Wow that is a very old synchroscope. Before I retired I was a Steam Plant Operator for Los Angeles DWP operating large steam boilers and steam turbine generator units. I synchronized power plant units a number of times during my career. It was easy to match the generator voltage to the line voltage. However when the steam turbine was near synchronous speed it took a few minutes of adjusting the turbine speed using the turbine governor to get the synchroscope rotating slowly in the fast direction and then close the unit circuit breaker when the synchroscope was needle was pointing straight up. I once heard a generator circuit breaker closed when the synchroscope showed not synchronized. This is bad for the generator. The generator let out a loud bang and shook the floor when the electrical grid suddenly pulled the generator into synchronism.

I used to do this every third night (or whoever was on shift) when I was in the Air Force, operating a Prime-Power diesel plant overseas. One genny was enough to run the system usually, but they had very short maintenance intervals because they were so old (40+ yrs.) Once they were synced, you had to carefully feed power (throttle) to the oncoming unit until it had the load, then disconnect and shut down the first one. Pretty exciting, because if you screwed up, you could drop them both offline and shut down the entire site. Then everybody would come running!

back in college in 82 i had a summer job for a power co. i was an intern for 2 engineers. we had a field visit to a nuclear power station that was expanding from 4 units to 8. i can't remember why but we were looking at the backup gas turbine generators t5 Mw each. i remember on the wall a huge clock like 3 ft diameter marked from 58 to 62 hz..

Amazing seeing these old display gauges I remember seeing a power plant built in 1920s and still using the original gauges and controls

Given I enjoy all things electricity and also mechanical etc this whole series has been a unfettered delight. Thank you good sir for this series and sharing this all with us!

It's interesting to see this. I had imagined hooking up my 45KW generator to the grid, and backfeeding. NOT that I would actually do it, for numerous reasons. But using the lights was exactly how I figured I could tell when to close the switch.

@5:00 that is such a peaceful sound.

I've done this (supervised) with diesel generators a couple of times for emergency training. The building was so loud I never got to hear the sync happen. Thank you for posting and whatever witchcraft the algorithm used to bring me here.

At first, I thought you were about to have a bad day when that gauge went past "fast" and started doing loops. If I saw that (as a layperson), I would have been running toward the door to get the heck out of there.

Can you explain the beat frequency between the two generators with both synced and tied to the grid? Thank you.

I've watched a TON of "generator sync" videos on KZfaq just because. Usually, when the operator closes "the big switch", the syncroscope is still rotating clockwise very slowly. To my uneducated brain, this means that the generator is still *just a little faster* than the grid (i.e. 61hz vs 60hz) and when the "big switch" closes, the generator will try to "push against" the grid at 61hz; the resistance of the grid regulates the speed downwards so it's 60hz but that extra effort is actually what's pushing the voltage onto the grid. Here it looks like you close the "big switch" when it's standing still or maybe even lagging behind the grid a little. Wouldn't this turn your generator into a giant motor, i.e. the grid at 60hz pushing your generator because it's only at 59hz? When are you SUPPOSED to close that switch- when it's standing still or slowly rotating?

We always close the generator breaker in with the synch scope moving slow in the fast direction, like your second synch, never slow in the slow direction like your first synch. In that way, there is less of a chance to slip a pole, with the exciter at lower settings when synching.

I found this very interesting to watch, and that was a scary thought about what you mentioned in a comment, get this wrong and you could launch a 30 Ton generator across the room. This to me sounds like one of those Binaural beat meditation things, by the way.

You know your panel is old when the idiot lights are 7.5G11 sign lamps in lampholders poking thru the metal.

When I worked the salmon season in Alaska 6 years ago (I was on the docks) we had this outdoor to indoor fan that pushed air into where I was working. I bring this up because you say the humming of the plant sticks with you. I get that. The noise of that fan sticks with me to this day. I can hear it as I type this now…

Thank you for these videos I love watching them, there is something about seeing into a place you would never normally be able to enter. I say that it is scientific curiosity but my daughter just calls me nosey! If I may I have a couple of questions was it originally built as a generator or is it a repurposed mill pond and are there many like this in the area or is it quite rare? Thanks again for keeping my brain occupied.

That's a beautiful sound!

Loved seeing this- thank you- reminds me of the sync lights on the 727- where flight engineers had to sync 3 AC units.

After the two generators are in sync and connected to the power grid, does the power grid itself maintain the synchronization or is there some sort of generator phase/RPM feedback mechanism on each generator for automatic speed adjustment?

we had these same gauges in the 1954 vintage coal plt. i worked in. We always sync. just slightly in the fast direction 100 mw units

Paging @Look mum no computer, who should totally sample this video for his next song.

Lot of steam plants have 'synch-check' relays as well. These are interlocked with the output breaker such that it won't close if freq/volt aren't matched and in-phase. One plant I know always synched manually, and yet another used a 'speed-matching' feature of the governor and let the system automatically synch. Different operators, different methods.

You just earned a new subscriber!

I'm gonna need an Atmosfär video of the happy power plant sound to test it's ability to permeate my dreams.

So, I get the whole synchronizing to the rotor phases, but what exactly are the lights indicating? Are these 2 phase generators, with the lights between the grid and the generator, so that when out of phase a voltage is created illuminating them, thus one lamp is phase 1 and the other phase 2? Or is it two just for fall back and its indicating phase from only one leg of the grid/gen? They seem to beat together, if they were separate phases id imagine some sort of beat occurring between them at some point... Aaaaaand there is the video explaining sync lights....I see it after typing this.....of course.....welp I typed it, not gonna delete it 😁

Happy power plant noise, 1 hour

Now I want to know what an exciter is.

This is cool, thanks for posting it Chris. Could you use an oscilloscope and frequency counter to accomplish the same? It's not steam punk cool like blinking lights and a spinning pointer :)

Nothing cooler than synchroscopes like this.

I know enough to put a meter on at home during a heat wave, back in late August or early July while the lights stayed on we had a technical brown out just over 58 Hz and just under 114 vac happened a couple of days in a row,peak times around 4pm-10 East coast north east section of US power grid

I could fall asleep to that

had a job that needed four one megawatt diesels be started and paralleled . . . just left the job to Russelectric gear . . . worked as spec'd, every time!

Do this all the time paralleling ships generators...

Thats co cool! you can actually see when its 180 degrees out of phase by the needle pointing the opposite direction :)

Is there a beat tone like that cause the gennys have different pole counts or something?

So do I understand correctly that you sync the generators purely by managing the water flow? That's pretty cool.

When you have grid lock, is there actually a way to see strain if valves/gates are too open or too closed or do you do that by hearing or is it regulating automatically?

I wish to hear the sound of unhappy generator for comparison

This is so cool!!!

You want sound that permeates your brain and dreams......run an air-arc cutter for 10 hours and that's all you hear after like a bad song stuck in your head...... it's like holding a downed powerline in your hand and arcing it off metal for your job

That was brilliant

Wow she is TALKIN!! Love the audio on this vid!

You can say that your two generators are only happy after you "beat" them ;)

Uau, this is an awsome explanation of what is going on. I've seen all the videos in the series and this realy nicely shows the process. A question: how come the synchroscope is showing a few degrees of "slow" for both generators after the sync? Is this the left to automatic wicket gate system to set in the end? Thank's for all the great information in this videos and keep up the good work!

Now imagine trying to do this by remote control over a two way radio system using just DTMF tones to open the gates and put it online

Someone needs to make a simulated version of this, maybe controlled by a Raspberry Pi or ESp32 - something with physical buttons and switches. ❤

So why wasn't the wicket opened to produce power into the grid. The 2nd tie was much better than the first as it was running slightly fast and closed just before top. Perfect. I'm surprised you were able to close going slow in the first one. The first one was quite a bit over frequency and had to slow a lot. Do you know if it was over 80 HZ. With manual exciter controls, it could go over voltage and damage things. Might want to get the exciter up earlier to watch the voltage and frequency on startup. Many plants have a reverse power relay that will trip if the generator motors off the grid. Some plants have over-speed trip. Was this just a practice run for a new operator to manually sync the generator?

I'd put that on the ol' bucket list but it's not gonna happen! Thanks for sharing

That sound would put me to sleep. And that's a good thing!

I’m really interested in learning more about hydroelectric dams this helps

Are the manual sync lights indicating the beat formed by the subtraction of the generator waveform and the grid waveform?

So if the generators are locked at frequency are they locked at power output?

I understand that a generator is synced to the grid before it is connected. But how does the grid regulate its frequency so that it doesn't drift away from 60 Hz?

How does it stays in phase all the time? Is there is any kind of circuit that measures differential current or just the very same force of the grid does that?

lol "This sound permeates your dreams"

What happens to the power generated before it is synced and connected to the grid? Is there a dump load?

Amazing how old this stuff is all the stuff I have worked with is done on computers and has a syncroscope on the computer and the computer dose the grid tie automatically. If you are out of a phase and tie into the grid big boom

The exciter for Gen 1 freaks me out.

5:10 Alarmingly accurate

Reminds me long time ago when I still active as a pirate amateur radio. Zero beating my VFO to my friend's transmitter frequency & phase.

Second one buzzed a bit. How far off can you click it "on" without blowing it up ?

The sound permeates your dreams...! 🤣

Thank you for not adding music I would have a better understanding of this if I could see everything working but I bet that's impossible

I'm looking forward to you returning to us all I hope this isn't a fantasy on my part

My question is what happens if some cleanfreak erases all the marker labeling stuff

This looks like it could be a minigame in Fallout

So does the turbine “make power” by putting out higher voltage than grid? Higher amps?

Good thing I just took my meds, so looking at flashing things doesn't affect me so much.

What kind of turbine?

You failed to mention/show, switch to close bus "TIE", for each Gen. also to close @ 5 minutes, @ "0" 12 o'clock.

those flashing lights remind me of flashing lights with neon signs from the same era.

It's the sound of an alien abduction in progress. One alien sound from the flying saucer hovering and rotating and the other alien sound from the alien abduction antigravity beam vacuuming you up.

How are this lights wired so they only light up every negative cycle (it aphears they go off at 50hz so thats why I am confused)

Synching on a slow scope was a no-no at my plant.

If everything is in sync, why is there a "beat frequency"? Logically, you would think that there would be no beat at all if everything was dead-on.

yes off topic but watching the gauge go round and round with the lights flashing, would remind me of watching some kind of twilight zone time travel movie..

I love this sound but i like more the 50Hz :-) I sleep very well with it

Why is there a “beat” when both generators are in sync?

Imagine what this must sound like in a plant like the Three Gorges dam in China!

Good job sir, To explain to those who don't understand what is happening. Its like pulling the plug on in a bath tube, it creates a void in the water displacement which causes actual water shock waves, sorry for the guy fishing upstream lol.. Simply said. Fast light, fast water Slow light, slow water. Needle in center , matched water turbine speed to balance electric flow. Needle spinning wildly? TOTALLY missed the timing of returning Shockwave and high risk of pitting pistol and turbine. Or worse dam failure or black outs. Along as it doesn't attach to grid, which you have seconds to do at match.

unit 1 was synched on slower side,

I find it weird u wouldn't fire up the gen as a motor and then feed drive to it to generate power

For reference, how many poles have generators 1 and 2? How do you get initial excitation ? Auxiliary gen on the same shaft? Grid backfeed?

Hypno Plant

Dynamo hum.

How is it done when two grids are being synchronised with each other? Like when the Eastern European countries' grids were synchronised with the Western European grid, or after a disturbance which splits the grid into several parts that need to be reconnected?

backrooms sound

omg please buy a computer. Why is this 1950th tech still used 😱

GE Schenectady NY made a lot of the equipment for power plants I recognize the style of Font and the name n the gauges A lot of these controls used to be run manually before there were PLCs And, if cyber attacks come, the PLCs are what will be targeted The power plants, substations and switches are able to be remotely operated over two-way radio and over the phone lines I used to have remote transmitter sites call me over the phone line in the network operations center when there were faults and give me a 2 digit code telling me what was wrong But every single site had a phone number and ANYONE could call the phone number and enter the 2 digits to control the different types of equipment So 00 might be the code to reset the equipment and put the site online. 99 might be the code to hang up ** Might be the code to open the primary breakers disconnecting from the utility power Then ## Tells the generator not to start, and the battery has 12 hours of power, but once that goes off there is no way to get the power back without going to the site If you keep the phone line connected, no one else can call the site to even see what is wrong There was no password on the phone system A lot of the power grid is the same as this It didn't have any security because they never thought someone would take control of the equipment It wasn't even thought about back in the 50s through the 90s After 9/11 they started to think about it, but so much is still completely open to attack It makes me worry because my health is so bad I need a machine to breathe When losing power means you die, you think about it all the time