Re: Re[2]: telehouse - 25 broadway

[Sean Donelan <sean () donelan com>]

On Sun, 16 September 2001, kevin pop account wrote:
> Before someone asks we have a very steady national
> supply over here so running the gens is purely
> a commerical aim.I would have thought that even
> stateside this would make sense no ?

The US has fairly strict air quality control laws.  It is
relatively expensive to operate a desiel generator more
than 100-200 hours a year in a major urban area due to the
permits and environmental pollution control requirements.

In most cases, it is less expensive to use utility power
in the USA, and generators only for backup.  With the
California power situation, several people have done a
lot of research on the trade-offs between utility and backup
power.

The result is, except for disasters, most backup generators
are not regularly operated for extended periods.

Before their budget was cut, the Department of Energy had
a great Backup Power Working Group.  You can read the
results of their work at

http://www.dp.doe.gov/CTG/bpwg/bpwg.htm

You should remember that generators are mechanical devices.
Wear and tear during extended run-times *WILL* result in
breakdowns.  The longer your operate the generators, the
more failures you will experience.  Its always a trade-off
between how long you test mechanical equipment.  Based on
DOE studies, many people actually over-test their backup
generators.

Standard Bell telephone CO design doesn't assume extended
disasters. Some colocation facility designers have designed
their generator plants differently than normal Bell practice.
But even colocation facility operations need to set some
limits to their design conditions.

Locations with power problems
    25 Broadway
    32 Old Slip
    ATT Local Service (WTC basement)
    Sprint/Sprint PCS (location unknown)

Locations destroyed
    Verizon/Genuity WTC

Until I know what happened, and read the final report, I
can't say if any particular design could have performed
any better.