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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.
Have a look see in developed nations.
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Houston Texas - Lightning Storm? Voltage Sag. Loss of power for long enough for all clocks in the house to go to 0:00, and for computers to turn off. Never longer than for 5-10 seconds.
-Since the electric motors draw more current when they are starting than when they are running at their rated speed, starting an electric motor can be a reason of a voltage sag.
-When a line-to-ground fault occurs, there will be a voltage sag until the protective switch gear operates.
-Some accidents in power lines such as lightning or falling an object can be a cause of line-to-ground fault and a voltage sag as a result.
-Sudden load changes or excessive loads can cause a voltage sag.
-Depending on the transformer connections, transformers energizing could be another reason for happening voltage sags.
-Voltage sags can arrive from the utility but most are caused by in-building equipment.
An actual power outage on the other hand can be caused by ANYTHING.
-Tree branch fell on a power line.
-Someone drove into a utility pole and broke a wire. Again with the Houston Texas example....I work in Oil and Gas, and my shop was out of power for 7 hours because someone ran into a utility pole on the corner of the street that leads to my office.
-Ground short.
-Transformer either on a line or at the utility shorts.
-Everything in between.
-All the way to emergency outage with the base load generator at whomever your power production company is.
You already pay for it - so how is it in their interests to invest in improvement? Nobody is going to build a better grid to compete on price or quality.
This perpetual motion machine Lisa made is a joke, it just keeps getting faster and faster. - Homer
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.
>For one, the US is big.. really big.. So it's not cost-effective to run power cables and alike underground. So that makes them more vulnerable.
Again and again this fallacy! When it's about espionnage everything is cost effective, distance does not matter. But when it's about basic and primary need local infrastructure, it's always too expensive. What is wrong with you guys?
Either way, storage is the "next big thing" for the electric grid. For one thing, it's essential for integrating intermittent sources like most renewables. But it will also help to make the entire grid more "islandable" -- diverse and distributed -- and thus more robust.
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Generally, a public company will invest only if there is an expectation of an acceptable return, or if they are forced to by actual regulation. Businesses like power, water, public transportation, telecommunication, and others require huge investments to get into the market, where possible at all, so there is no real competition either.
The grass is always greener on the other side of the light cone.
No - it's not even a question. Bury the lines and you will remove a large number of causes for power outages.
Even more important - realize that each outage costs money for the community. In the long run buried lines will save money - even if you are in an area where the ground is filled with rocks.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
As with internet providers, just change to a different energy provider. One that puts their cables underground.
The free market is the solution to every problem.
1) Espionage is anything but cost-effective. But cost isn't the primary (or even secondary) concern there for those who want to do the spying. (It's (technical) feasibility)
2) Running cable above ground is _always_ more cost-effective then running cable underground. So if you:
- don't give a shit about your customers
- don't have a lot of competition because you can gain a monopoly by buying senators
- and if you do a bare minimum of maintenance because you want more money (more so if you _do_ run cables underground)
then even in a city, local power stability is going to be shit.
Short lived for lead acid? last time I had a solar setup my lead acid batteries lasted 10 years.
And this was 15 years ago, today the newer lead acid tech is even better.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
You do realize most aerials are aluminum right?
Not only that but in free air both basically double their current handling loads. So you get situations were a 200amp rated line is being tied into a 200amp line that is half the size coming from the power company.
Once The power companies are allowed to massively over rate the cables compared to what building codes allow. think how much money they save by using cables half the size.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
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.
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In the long run buried lines will save money - even if you are in an area where the ground is filled with rocks.
Hahahhaah. That was a laugh. Sorry but no. The cost of digging is astronomical for no reason other than the fact we can't look underground and we're super screwed when we hit something.
About 20 years ago I would have agreed with you hands down, but since then the cost of trenching has increased 10fold for any public works or works conducted in hazardous facilities. Dig a hole in your back yard? No issue. Dig it in the street, you may as well file for bankruptcy.
It's actually quite comical, we broke our lead in phone line on our property when raising a house and the conduit underground was broken so they couldn't easily run a new one. The options were pay $10000 to the telecom company for the cost of trenching + install, or pay some third party $500 to trench, and then pay the telecom company $500 to install the new line.
It's ludicrous.
For one, the US is big.. really big.. So it's not cost-effective to run power cables and alike underground. So that makes them more vulnerable.
This argument is only valid for long-distance transmission lines, and failure of those lines contributes to very few outages (the 2003 NE US blackout comes to mind). Customer-perceived blackouts are almost all due to failure of metropolitan and suburban distribution networks. Areas where population density is as high as any other developed nation.
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.
You could compete with the power company yourself. Install solar or maybe a wind turbine if there is room, large battery pack for backup. Will pay for itself in 10 years anyway and no more outages.
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The US also lacks them darn hippie commies regulating the industry in the consumer's favour from time to time.
Your domestic supply doesn't have an SLA, or penalties if there are outages. In truth, none of us will probably ever see such a thing. Instead though, get a regulator who penalises supply companies when they screw up. If it's force majeur, then you might let them off a fine, but warn them to toughen up their infrastructure because next time you will fine them. If it's just that they're scrimping on delivering, then fine them to 'motivate' them to spend the money when the consumers need it.
Contrary to popular belief, an awful lot of European power is run over ground. If there's an area prone to problems, then they either end up routing around it, adding more capacity to cope with outages or in extreme circumstances, go underground. I don't believe the US is unique in any important ways with regards to the logistics of power delivery - all of its problems have a solution, if you're motivated to find it. USians probably laugh at us Europeans who generally pay more for almost everything than they do, but at least our shit works most of the time.
In most European places I've seen, the long-distance lines are above ground (which constitutes the "grid"), and in cities and towns the cables are below ground. The size of the US doesn't matter, as we are talking about cities. As others have pointed out, the grid is redundant, but the cabling in towns and cities is not. No-one is talking about running rural lines underground, just those in cities, where it makes sense and provides a first-world power supply. Trotting out the "but we so biiiig!" argument when someone points out that the US's infrastructure is sometimes laughable only perpetuates the issues, and ensures that they will never be fixed.
The costs of the outage is to the community. While the cost of buried lines is to the power company.
Gee, I wonder which the power company will choose?
Comparing the U.S. the little toy countries in Europe is silly. They are about the size of one of our states. It is much easier given their pop. density to keep their little toy grids up and running.
The countries with lower population density in Europe has more stable power supplies. The countries with higher population density also have more stable power supplies. Those "toy" networks put together supply more than twice the US population wtih power. At least with ISPs the Chewbacca defense could say the US has more long haul domestic traffic, when it comes to the power grid....what? Snip all the interstate lines then and one state will be the size of one EU country and supply its own population and US power supply will be great. That's what you're saying, because you built one big network it must be crap. And it has to be crap, because...?
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Storage is the "next great myth" - a solution looking for a problem. And government handouts.
I was stuck behind storm Sandy in New Jersey and discovered that 99% of the problems there were self induced. Guess what - they don't trim trees away from the power lines. Every time you get wind, dozens to hundreds (or thousands in this case) or branches snap the lines.
To be fair, when the utility company trims trees the residents raise holy hell.
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I've often wondered about the possibility of not re-burying the trench: make the trench shallower, cover it with a walkable grate, and just leave it that way.
Looks terrible, creates a safety hazard (grates WILL be pulled up and people electrocuted), creates a metal theft problem, doesn't adequately protect the cable from freeze/thaw problems, doesn't protect from rodents & wildlife adequately, still vulnerable to weather, etc. Problems with doing this are legion. The biggest is safety. You do NOT want the general public to have convenient access to power lines because someone will inevitably do something stupid.
It's actually cheaper and safer to bury it. A grate like you propose would be kind of the worst of both worlds in practice.
I have a feeling that if the GP did that, both companies would say that it's the phone company's responsibility....
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That's because they don't properly trim trees, they hack off whatever might be near the lines. If they would actually trim the trees so they don't look like the crippled survivors of a war, people wouldn't gripe.
There are a couple trees near me that they 'trimmed' such that they will almost inevitably fall over onto the road sooner or later. That's what happens when you cut all the branches off of one side. It's a classic "somebody else's problem now" sort of 'solution'
July 20, 1969 was, possibly justifiably, the biggest national ego-validation event in human history. The problem was after that when it came to national achievement, our eyes were firmly pointed back in time. We no longer do things "because they are hard". We're more focused on cashing in on the achievements of past generations.
When you tell Americans we have a backward mobile telephone system, a technologically primitive electric grid and distribution system, and Internet connectivity that lags behind the rest of the developed world, the reaction is usually disbelief. How can that be? We put a man on the Moon -- although by now it should be "grandpa put a man on the Moon."
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