This is one of the Osage Municipal Utilities’ 3600 KW generators that powers the town when needed – like during last week’s ice storm when the power coming into town went down. Less than an hour after the power went out, the generators were up and running and power in town was restored. In all there are 4 engines totaling 16 MW.
Matt is a lineman for OMU, and I stopped by the plant with him on Day 3 of the storm to check on things. During his first 5 years with OMU he was also a standby plant operator. Now he mainly just has to answer questions about throwing switches and such (that’s about as much as I understand about the whole thing.)
He told me that once he had to climb inside the crank case of an engine. They sucked out all the oil they could and then he climbed in with a rag to sponge out the remaining oil and pick up little pieces of babbit.
As you can probably imagine, it’s very noisy and smelly. But I’m always amazed at how clean everything is.
The on and off switches – I’m sure the guys will love that description.
Great post. People don’t think about things like this. They just know their lights are back on.
Wow! Very impressive!When the lights go out around here it’s back to candles. Fortunately we heat with wood.