Talk:Black start

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The described sequence[edit]

By the way, the sequence described in the article is the exact sequence used by a real utility that I visited. The Cat diesel generator at the hydro station was started from a Sears Diehard battery. I asked the station's chief engineer what happens if the Diehard is dead. He responded "You see my pickup truck sitting out there in the parking lot..." :-)

Atlant 13:00, 26 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would only want to query point 6 - as generating sets don't want to run on zero load, they will generally supply their local distribution network before they supply other stations, in a black start scenario. I'll think of a subtle change to wording that might capture this. JohnGray 16:00, 2 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I was once told by the operator of a mid-size hydro plant that due to construction the entire area around the plant was isolated from the grid for one week. The plant (and its sisters) supplied the now-isolated area, but for stability two generators were employed as motors to load the system, as an aid to stability, preventing the underloaded generators from 'hunting', causing voltage and frequency variations. LorenzoB (talk) 05:20, 28 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Was the reference to the pickup truck saying he would head for the hills, or going to borrow its battery? --J Clear (talk) 01:28, 10 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Black Start - what is it?[edit]

First line of the article:

< A black start is the process of restoring a power station to operation without relying on external energy sources.>

Later:

< black-start power must be provided over the electrical transmission network from other stations >

H'mmmm . . . 86.176.113.219 (talk) 13:55, 24 September 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.176.113.219 (talk) 13:52, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

How is it now? The key idea is that the network isn't available to import power, but that you may have a tie line to a specific designated plant that will provide station service power during start-up. ( I'd better fix the rest of it, too...) --Wtshymanski (talk) 14:30, 24 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Station service generators[edit]

It's probably unnecessary to say that a hydro plant diesel is used to start the station service generators, and then the station service generators start the rest of the plant. Some plants have house units that are small enough to crank open the wicket gates by hand, and don't need a diesel. Other plants have a big enough diesel to directly start the main units; even a ~100 MW hydro unit only needs 100 kW or less to get started, so a standby diesel unit may be a much smaller and cheaper option than a house unit. A 500 kW diesel is much cheaper to install than a 500 kW hydro turbine. ( This is how we're doing it at Wuskwatim Generating Station, anyway. )Specific details vary. --Wtshymanski (talk) 13:17, 1 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've never seen a diesel generator at a hydro power plant. My experience is limited to United States West coast power plants, so the scope of my work is limited. What I've always seen are station service units that can battery start off the 125V DC station battery. The batteries are good for many hours of backup, and the station service auto-starts on a loss of power and / or the station service generators remain in service all the time. Quite a few can be hand started, with hand operable gates and hand pumps for lube oil. Given that adjustment of the spillway gates and outlet works are dependent on station service power, reliability of service power is very important at a plant where the dam would be over-topped shortly after the generators shutoff.

The challenge is going to be finding references for all of this. Auxiliary details aren't often well documented in public documents. 139.142.106.12 (talk) 20:53, 4 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

From academia: PWM-capable HVDC line can be used to black start as well.[edit]

The process is like the following:

The grid is out, but one HVDC inverter station with IGBT switching elements have energized DC lines coming in.
A PWM signal is fed into the gates of the IGBTs in the inverter and start to energize the local grid. Immediate area next to the station start to receive power.
A nearby base load power station start to operate, drawing power from the HVDC inverter station. More lines became energized and more area start to receive power.
After all the base load stations are started up, including possibly the nuclear power, the black start process is complete. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Xcvista (talk • contribs) 19:41, 20 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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Induction start[edit]

@Wtshymanski: Unreferenced text reads "Wind turbines, mini-hydro, or micro-hydro plants, are often connected to induction generators which are incapable of providing power to re-energize the network." to which I added "Citation needed", and you then reverted. Please don't remove "citation needed" tags before providing a reference or deleting the un-verified text.

This sentence makes several dubious claims. For instance the consideration of a wind turbine, which would be the last source considered for black start power, induction generator or not. Hydro power is a very common choice for black start power and is normally used to re-energize the network. Induction generators are quite capable of starting with the aid of batteries, similar in principal to diesel powered generators starting with the aid of batteries. That induction generators are not self exciting does not imply the other claims are true. If no source is given for these opinions I intend to delete them. Dougmcdonell (talk) 23:44, 1 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

You would have a hard time selling black start services to your local utility if your only asset was induction generators, without a large amount of documentation to explain how you're going to use "batteries" in the process. --Wtshymanski (talk) 00:07, 2 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The point about the inability of black starting induction generators is quite valid. For such a generator to produce power, it has to be driven above its synchronous speed. Without any power on the network that you are trying to re-energise, the induction generator has no way of determining what that synchronous speed is. Even if you could somehow excite it with batteries, there is still no means of establishing the synchronous speed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.149.136.124 (talk) 14:11, 2 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

In the 21st century, is not possible to provide a crystal controlled lowe power AC source for synchronisation purposes only? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.191.177.31 (talk) 05:06, 18 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Batteries[edit]

Nuclear power station have standby batteries which cut in automatically if power is cut from the station itself and externally. These are specified to last for days, but in reality would run for over a week. I used to be involved with that business. Rustygecko (talk) 11:15, 18 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]