Today our hydro power company released a statement: “We’ve heard from many customers asking why clocks skipped a few minutes this morning. This was due to our system balancing to match customer demand following a period of high frequency overnight. We want to reassure this wasn’t a result of system/equipment related issues.”
When I checked around the house my alarm , microwave and oven clocks were all 8-10 minutes ahead but my PC and Keurig coffee maker were fine. How can this system balancing change what time some clocks are displaying and why does it only affect certain devices?
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In addition to what the others said not all power grids worldwide maintain frequency accurately enough to run clocks so when you design a product expected to be sold worldwide like Keurig it’s better not to rely on the power grid. Your Keurig coffee maker has a crystal oscillator that generates signal at a known frequency. As for the PC, virtually all PCs since 80s have a battery powered clock chip with its own a crystal oscillator.
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