68 Volt Brownout 7/4/2026

Late at night on 7/4/2026, many parts of the state encountered power related outages due to the severe weather that passed through the area. I encountered a brownout on my street, which reduced the voltage on both legs to 68 degrees after a few seconds of the power flashing on and off completely. This is a very dangerous situation as appliances such as air conditioners can stall and draw LRA loads, tripping breakers and blowing fuses. Wiring and equipment can overheat if the phases go out of balance and voltage increases on one side. This initially started as an unpleasant surprise while I was taking a shower. I quickly ran around the house and shut off all air conditioners. I then went downstairs and disconnected from the mains, unfortunately while multiple computers were powered on. The Windows did crash off one of the computers temporarily. After about an hour of outage, I started up the generator to keep the food good in the refrigerator. This was the first time I used the new generator setup for any length of time; it worked well and was easy to set up. A call to the electricity provider revealed a long list of outages throughout the state. The electricity was only out for a few hours, by early morning it was restored. Unfortunately my generator appears to have failed, but at least it failed after it was no longer needed for this incident. The failure is an excellent example of why you always should have 2 piece of equipment on hand at minimum, because sometimes equipment breaks.