12-02-2013, 04:56 PM
Very interesting, Rob. For the last two or three years our observatory at the summit and others have noticed an increasing number of power "glitches". The rise is very dramatic and very real. A small part of this was switching to remote operations, i.e., running the observatory remotely from Hilo which meant we were more vulnerable to outages, but if you take away the glitches that wouldn't have been seen by an observatory running solely at the summit, the dramatic rise is still there.
I won't name names or anything like that, but I do know someone from an organisation hoping to start running an observatory next year asked someone relatively high up at HELCO about the increasing number of glitches. The answer was not what I expected. Apparently, and allegedly, the problem is due to an increasing number of people switching to solar or other renewable means of home electricity production, and that the number of times these systems turn on and off is causing HELCO problems in providing a steady supply of electricity on the grid.
This was a surprise to me and of course I can't verify how truthful the statement was. I had assumed it was an ageing grid infrastructure that was causing the problem but it might be a lot more than that.
I won't name names or anything like that, but I do know someone from an organisation hoping to start running an observatory next year asked someone relatively high up at HELCO about the increasing number of glitches. The answer was not what I expected. Apparently, and allegedly, the problem is due to an increasing number of people switching to solar or other renewable means of home electricity production, and that the number of times these systems turn on and off is causing HELCO problems in providing a steady supply of electricity on the grid.
This was a surprise to me and of course I can't verify how truthful the statement was. I had assumed it was an ageing grid infrastructure that was causing the problem but it might be a lot more than that.