Wacky Weekend: NERC to relax power grid frequency strictures

[black at csulb.edu (Matthew Black)]

On Fri, 24 Jun 2011 18:29:14 -0400
  Jay Ashworth <jra at baylink.com> wrote:
> The North American Electric Reliability Council is planning to relax
> the standards for how closely power utilities must hold to 60.00Hz.
> 
> Here's my absolute favorite quote of all time:
> 
>  Tweaking the power grid's frequency is expensive and takes a lot of 
>effort, 
>  said Joe McClelland, head of electric reliability for the Federal Energy 
>  Regulatory Commission.


I blinked too after hearing of this. They say it's an economic issue because 
it costs millions of dollars to maintain a steady frequency. Excuse me...we 
probably spend over $50 billion per year on electricity and they're 
complaining about a few million. Talk about pinching pennies!

matthew black
e-mail postmaster
california state university, long beach