What differentiates brownouts from blackouts?
In: Engineering
A brownout is usually caused by non-standard voltage or line frequency on that part of the grid. A blackout is just no electricity at all. Brownouts, they claim, have the ability to affect or even damage some electronics, so they’re considered worse than a blackout.
I believe it’s that brown outs flicker, but black outs kill lights.
Brown outs don’t mean the powers out per se, but that the electricity is not steady/ cuts out from time to time.
Black outs are where an entire area/ section of a grid is completely without power.
Brownouts = you remember bits and pieces from the previous weekend. Blackouts = you remember nothing, often coming to in unfamiliar places with strangers and not knowing where your clothing or car is.
Brown outs are the utility intentionally lowering the voltage as an energy conservation attempt. Typically this is in the 2% to 3% range, but could vary depending on the utility.
A blackout can be for the same thing (energy conservation as was being done in Texas) as an emergency measure to save the grid from collapse, and the power/voltage is cut completely instead of just lowered. If this fails and the grid collapses, it is still a blackout, just unintentional, and takes much longer to correct.
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