Fri Nov 1 14:42:28 PST 2002 — On Monday night at midnight we will be making a full test of our power generation facilities. While we certainly don’t have any reason to expect an interruption of power during this transition, it is possible. We plan to run the ISP on diesel for about 30 minutes during this test.
This will be the first full load test of the generator. Two previous partial load tests and periodic no load tests have gone well. Once the system is proven at full load, we will be doing periodic full load runs at least once per month during the daytime.
Sonic.net’s power generation system is a 24 liter V-12 twin turbocharged Detroit Diesel, which generates 1024 horsepower and 750,000 watts of power. This is enough electricity to power a small town of about 750 homes – or, one rather large ISP. A huge Leibert UPS array keeps us online during generator startup.
Tue Nov 5 10:32:16 PST 2002: Update; due to a scheduling difficulty, this test has been delayed until Tuesday at midnight.
Wed Nov 6 00:35:06 PST 2002: Update; as I write this, Sonic.net is running entirely on diesel power. The full transition test went smoothly, and all power generation and transfer systems operated as expected.
Our power generation plant can keep Sonic.net running indefinitely in the event of a utility failure. We have enough diesel on site currently to run for a week, and a fueling truck is scheduled to visit as often as we need. -Dane