Transcript:
Two panel meme.
Top panel: Woman in the front seat of a car screaming at a child in the rear seat. She’s saying “Why can’t you just shutdown?”
Bottom panel: A child screaming “A stop job is running for Session c2 of user … (1:30 / no limit)”
A blackout is just a loss of power. Nothing complicated about it.
A brownout means that the electric grid (or interconnection), for some reason, can’t supply enough power to satisfy the demand, but protection devices haven’t tripped yet. It can result in momentary power losses, drops in voltage, drops in frequency, or some generators getting desynchronized with the rest of the grid. If reactive loads (like HVAC motors) go offline momentarily, they can cause spikes in power consumption, which can overload circuits and trip safety devices.
A UPS needs to immediately switch to battery power when there are signs of an imminent power loss. A brownout might cause a consumer-grade UPS to switch on and off repeatedly, which the inverter circuit probably doesn’t like.
This channel is run by a real civil engineer, he’s released some great videos about the challenges of maintaining an electric grid.