Problems at Manchester Airport 23 June

[whole diary]

[TaplowGreen]

BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) News - Power failure halts flights from two Manchester Airport terminals - BBC News
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c722ppxldldo

[broadgage]

As with railways, have they not heard of standby generators ? able to supply about 25% of normal lighting and 100% of other important services, excluding non important catering and retail.
AND UPS systems for the most critical services including those those that cant tolerate even a brief power loss whilst waiting for a generator to start.

[ChrisB]

How big do you suppose the UPS battery array would need to be to keep running all the IT systems at that airport?

[broadgage]

How big do you suppose the UPS battery array would need to be to keep running all the IT systems at that airport?

Probably several hundred kilowatts !  Maybe smaller with sensible design, remembering that only the most critical parts need UPS protection. A lot of ancillary equipment can be shut down until the generators start.

[stuving]

If you read far enough down that BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) story, it says:

Airport managing director Chris Woodroofe said a "fault with a cable had caused a power surge that took down security systems and baggage screening".
...
The airport's back-up power came on when the primary system went down, but the situation was complicated by mains power cutting out multiple times.

In my view "power surge" is a rather lazy explanation; power does not surge all on its own. It usually takes something like overvoltage (e.g. from lightning), a fault (e.g. to earth), or switching power at the wrong time. This case looks like a version of the last of those.

AIUI^▸ (as I understand it), this cable is part of the airport's own system, not the DNO^▸ (Distribution Network Operator)/ENO's. I imagine that IT systems have UPSs if they need them, and after a while would be manually switched over to the emergency generator. It should be possible to make that power system immune to whatever the returning mains might do, but I'm not surprised that was not the case.

[GBM]

As with railways, have they not heard of standby generators ? able to supply about 25% of normal lighting and 100% of other important services, excluding non important catering and retail.
AND UPS systems for the most critical services including those those that cant tolerate even a brief power loss whilst waiting for a generator to start.

Going back many years ago, we had a standby genny which kicked in when we had a power cut.
We tested it every week with a manual change over; worked like a charm.
Mostly when we had a power cut/surge it rarely kicked in!

[Electric train]

If you read far enough down that BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) story, it says:

Airport managing director Chris Woodroofe said a "fault with a cable had caused a power surge that took down security systems and baggage screening".
...
The airport's back-up power came on when the primary system went down, but the situation was complicated by mains power cutting out multiple times.

In my view "power surge" is a rather lazy explanation; power does not surge all on its own. It usually takes something like overvoltage (e.g. from lightning), a fault (e.g. to earth), or switching power at the wrong time. This case looks like a version of the last of those.

AIUI^▸ (as I understand it), this cable is part of the airport's own system, not the DNO^▸ (Distribution Network Operator)/ENO's. I imagine that IT systems have UPSs if they need them, and after a while would be manually switched over to the emergency generator. It should be possible to make that power system immune to whatever the returning mains might do, but I'm not surprised that was not the case.

"Power surge" is a term used by non electrical people as a lazy way to understand / explain a power failure.

As with railways, have they not heard of standby generators ? able to supply about 25% of normal lighting and 100% of other important services, excluding non important catering and retail.
AND UPS systems for the most critical services including those those that cant tolerate even a brief power loss whilst waiting for a generator to start.

Going back many years ago, we had a standby genny which kicked in when we had a power cut.
We tested it every week with a manual change over; worked like a charm.
Mostly when we had a power cut/surge it rarely kicked in!

There is only so much back capacity that is economically viable to install, usual rule of thumb preservation of life / people safety systems first eg ATC^▸ (Automatic Train Control), fire fighting evacuation systems.

In convinced passengers would not be regarded as a safety system