Generator info

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Hi i was scouring the web for ifoon generators and found this article
If you feed power back into the electrical system during an outage, you will energise the transformer serving your house. This poses an electrocution hazard for Energex or Ergon Energy line crews and for your neighbours who may not know the lines is energised. If power is restored while your generator is backfeeding, your generator may be severely damaged.

http://www.deir.qld.gov.au/electricalsafety/livingaroundelectricity/generator/general/index.htm

Could a neighbour be supplied (or hurt) from your generator if the power went down,you plugged a genny into your socket outlet and had all your protective devices closed thus feeding current back down the supply line in the opposite way than usual
 
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You will probably trip (or stall) the generator. But yes its very dangerous to do this.

If your house is the only one fed from a small PMT (pole mounted transformer) what will happen is that you will end up backfeeding it, and it will step up your supply making the 11kV (sometimes 33kV) side live, at that voltage... instant death to anyone working on it.

You need to have a proper 100 amp double pole changeover switch in order to swap from your normal house supply to the generator supply.
 
Yes, also don't forget about the poor electricity guy trying to fix the cable too! This is why a proper generator change over switch needs to be installed.
 
if it was a small transformer feeding only your house or only a couple of houses and not much equipment was on and the primary side of the transformer was open circuit I imagine it would be perfectly possible to energise the primary side.
 
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it has happened, thats why we used a westminster to double check the HV side.

Touch the live line, hear a fizz and look down the line to see the isolator is open, spend a minute scratching your head then hear the sound of a generator in the distance. Quite a common one!
 
What do you use for an earth if there's no handy railway line at the foot of the transformer pole outside someones house? ;)
 
My DNO have a bit of gubbins that is litterally like a gun that fires a cord up over the lines. They also have something they bolt around an underground cable and fire a bullet like bolt through the middle from a distance prior to jointing HV.
 
£215 :eek:

I am of the belief that one could put a 2P C/O switch, an RCD and a couple of indicator lamps into an enclosure for a great deal less than that...
 
I got my c/o switch and ceeform inlet as a package deal for £65 off ebay, proper decent quality stuff too. I just modded the c/o to add a mains live alarm and indicators.

As for cable spiking guns.... they soon taught BT a lesson many years back when we spiked what we thought was an 11kV cable.... it was a main fibre-optic cable right next to it lol. That'll teach them to use red cables! Cost the electricity board a fortune getting that put right, aswell as the fun of cutting telephone services to about 2 or 3 counties!
 

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