This sounded like a fun project so I signed up to be a monitoring station. Check out FNET - from their About page:
About FNET
Operated by the Power Information Technology Laboratory at the University of Tennessee, FNET is a low-cost, quickly deployable GPS-synchronized wide-area frequency measurement network. High dynamic accuracy Frequency Disturbance Recorders (FDRs) are used to measure the frequency, phase angle, and voltage of the power system at ordinary 120 V outlets. The measurement data are continuously transmitted via the Internet to the FNET servers hosted at the University of Tennessee and Virginia Tech. The Power IT Lab has developed several applications which use the FNET data to study the power system, including:
- Event detection and location
- Oscillation detection
- Animations of frequency and angle perturbations
- Integration of renewables into the power grid
- Detection of system breakup or islanding
- Prediction of grid instability and reduction of blackouts
- Providing grid control input signals
The online display can be found here: U.S. Frequency Gradient Map I am the little dot due East of Bellingham close to the Canadian border.
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