Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Could You Measure a Change in Air Flow caused by a Wind Turbine in a distance of 100 km?

Assume an air flow of x m**3 per second. What happens at your position if a big wind turbine is starting to rotate in a distance of 100 km? Do you expect that you could measure that the air flow is reduced due to the wind turbine that removes energy from the air flow? It may be possible if the turbine would be located in a huge tube. So far so good.
Another question: Could you believe "that a short-circuit at Lawrence Berkeley lab one day was observed by a micro-PMU [Phasor Measurement Units] in Los Angeles, 550 kilometers away, as a 0.002 percent dip in voltage"? It is more likely that one can measure a 0.002 percent dip in 550 km distance than a change in air flow 100 km away caused by a wind turbine.
With a network of many micro-PMUs it may be possible to figure out that somebody is switching on a computer. If you install enough micro-PMUs you may get there.
With a good power quality meter and pattern recognition I could figure out when my wife switches on the Toaster or Microwave.

Each of load (in our home or in the neighborhood) has a specific finger print. So that I could see the patterns and learn what they mean - after some training.

Some people made this observation "We're watching the volts and the amps and we’re not even inside the substation. We’re five miles away. We came up with this idea: What if we were to tell the substation operator that this substation switch is opening and closing? If they were the ones opening and closing it, that’s great. But if not, that’s a pretty good sign that there’s a cyber attack at least being experimented with.”

This is a true story (I guess).

Click HERE for a news report from IEEE Spectrum.

More Big Data to come. Be aware in your home that a power quality meter connected to the copper wire some 20 to 50 m away may be watching you. What about privacy? Is it a good thing to know (almost) everything?
"For in much wisdom is much grief; and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow." (Kohelet 1:18)


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