Ask Slashdot: Why Is the Power Grid So Crummy In So Many Places?

An anonymous reader writes: I live in a relatively large college town that's within easy driving distance of several major metropolitan centers. In many ways, the infrastructure around here is top-notch. The major exception is the electrical grid. Lightning storm? Power outage. Heavy winds? Power outage. Lots of rain? Power outage. Some areas around town are immune to this — like around the hospital, for obvious reasons. But others seem to lose power at the drop of hat. Why is this? If it were a tiny village or in the middle of nowhere, it would make sense to me. What problems do the utility companies face that they can't keep service steady? Do you deal with a lot of outages where you live? I'm not sure if it's just an investment issue or a technological one. It hasn't gotten better in the decade I've lived here, and I can imagine it will only get worse as the infrastructure ages.

Comments

In Finland

[Anonymous Coward]

The utility companies need to pay to the customers for power outages, and also can be held liable for damages, for example spoiled food in fridge, freezer. The ordinary payment is 10 % of yearly transfer fees for 12 hours...

Thanks to the underground cabling, in Finland the last time I witnessed personally witnessed a power outage was in 2006 in thunderstorm, lasting for 2 minutes.

Re:In Finland

[Z00L00K]

Similar in Sweden, where I live there have been maybe 5 outages the last 15 years, none of them long enough to create any problems aside from having to set the clock radio again.

And we have underground wiring. Areas with above ground wiring sees more outages.

This is also what annoys me whenever I have been visiting the US - the air is filled with wires high and low, which definitely destroys the scenery of the otherwise picturesque towns that are common in New England among other places.

Re:In Finland

[Solandri]

This brings me to my curiosity over why Americans keep building houses out of wood in these regions? In California for example much of the earthquake damage seems to be wooden houses although they have noticeably strengthened building codes Californians are still stuck with a whole lot of vulnerable older houses

Structural engineer here. Wooden structures survive earthquakes best because they flex. Contrary to the story of the three little pigs, stone masonry is the worst because it has no lateral strength. They're fine in static loading when all the forces are pointing straight down; but the moment the force vector tilts a bit sideways they collapse. The huge death tolls you hear about from earthquakes in developing countries is almost always from collapsed masonry or concrete structures. Mud huts simply don't have the mass to kill residents, and wood homes survive most earthquakes relatively intact. In the 1933 Long Beach earthquake most of the brick schoolbuildings collapsed. Fortunately the earthquake happened in the evening when the kids were home from school, or it could've been a disaster rivaling the 1906 San Francisco quake. But that's the quake which made California realize brick buildings in earthquake country were just plain stupid. If you drive around Los Angeles or San Francisco and look at the older brick buildings, you'll often see a regular pattern of square metal plates on the outside. These are the end ties for steel rods which retrofitted to masonry buildings. They run through the entire length of the building and connect all four sides together into a rigid box. Without them the walls simply fall over in an earthquake.

Metal would be better, but is much more expensive. And its strength is not needed for static loads in smaller structures. Static loading is the reason skyscrapers are made of metal, not because it's more resistant to earthquakes. Skyscrapers are naturally resistant to earthquakes because their height gives them a much lower natural resonance frequency than most earthquakes, and they just kind of shimmy in place during a quake. The highest-risk structures are about 3 stories tall - that's where your resonance frequency matches that of a typical earthquake. If you look at the buildings which collapsed in the Loma Prieta quake and the Northridge quake, the vast majority were 3 stories. Both were relatively moderate quakes so give you an idea which buildings are the first to collapse, unlike larger quakes which destroy a larger variety of buildings.

In earthquake country like California, the two places I would never live in are masonry buildings, and 3 story tall buildings.

Re:Aerial or underground ?

[NormalVisual]

Conversely, where I live everything is buried. We lose power for a second or two almost daily, with at least one outage longer than a minute per month.

8X cost increase up front

[sjbe]

No - it's not even a question. Bury the lines and you will remove a large number of causes for power outages.

Quote correct. Thing is someone has to pay for the upfront cost of burying the cables and it is much more expensive. Where I live stringing wires on poles costs in rough numbers something like $1 per linear foot. Burying the cable costs about $8 per linear foot. (this is semi-reliable info from family who worked in the business and would know) Getting the funds to do any sort of meaningful program of burying wires would likely involve a rate increase which tends to be as popular as a lead filled life preserver.

In the long run buried lines will save money - even if you are in an area where the ground is filled with rocks.

That isn't so clear in a lot of places. Repairs on above ground wires are more common but cheaper when they occur. Roll a truck, look up and get busy. Repairs on buried cable is just the opposite. Even finding the problem is harder and many repairs involve a lot of digging. There are places near where I live (semi-rural 20 miles from a major metro area) where it might make economic sense to bury the cable but also quite a few where it most likely doesn't. You can do a LOT of repairs before you even break even on the buried cable despite its general higher reliability. Plus you are replacing infrastructure that already exists and lots of it so any sort of economically rational replacement program would take decades. Every place that truly needs reliable power has a backup generator anyway so it's not like you are gaining much in practical terms by burying the cables for quite a few customers.

Don't get me wrong, I think a lot more cables should be buried than currently are but it's not as simple an equation as buried = more reliable = cheaper.