Power’s out

[Allen ★]

I’ve lost count of how many times my power has gone out this year. It’s not even raining. Me thinks the EMC needs to spend some funds on infrastructure. 

[Further]

Our infrastructure is aging fast, building new stuff is sexy and people can see that they are getting something for their money. Replacing old stuff is not the same, a new electric line is nowhere near the fun of a new car

At the mill they buy new machines but ignore the power distribution that keeps the machinery running. I understand the argument, spend a couple million dollars replacing some switchgear and all you have is the same electricity you had before.

But when it blows up you might have no power for quite a long time, medium voltage distribution gear isn't sitting on the shelf down at Grainger

[Kirby]

If only this were firefly season, they could light your yard for you.

Hope  the power is back on soon.

[maddmaxx ★]

1 hour ago, Further said:

Our infrastructure is aging fast, building new stuff is sexy and people can see that they are getting something for their money. Replacing old stuff is not the same, a new electric line is nowhere near the fun of a new car

At the mill they buy new machines but ignore the power distribution that keeps the machinery running. I understand the argument, spend a couple million dollars replacing some switchgear and all you have is the same electricity you had before.

But when it blows up you might have no power for quite a long time, medium voltage distribution gear isn't sitting on the shelf down at Grainger

If only they could be convinced that new gear with modern load shedding capacitor banks could save them lots of money through power factor correcting.

[Thaddeus Kosciuszko]

1 hour ago, Allen said:

Me thinks the EMC needs to spend some funds on infrastructure. 

 

1 hour ago, Further said:

medium voltage distribution gear isn't sitting on the shelf down at Grainger

 

Right on both counts. 

It might even give you pause about the headlong rush toward electric vehicles.  Almost like the Arab Oil Embargo with the lines at the gas stations.  Replace 'gas station' with 'utility', and replace 'gasoline' with 'electricity' and you can imagine a pretty good picture if the generation, transmission, and distribution infrastructure doesn't grow to match the new loads.

I know of areas where the utility refuses to connect new natural gas customers.  Customers have a choice of heating with oil or electric.  The utility's gas lines are at max capacity, but they're not allowed to install new natural gas lines to increase delivery capacity.  So, no new customers and no new loads to prevent failure of the entire system bled dry by too many connected loads.

The same thing will happen with the electric utilities if they get pushed hard enough.  At first, you'll be able to get all the power you want - for a price - or should I say a PRICE.  Once the grids become truly maxed out, the utilities will begin to prohibit new customers from connecting and existing customers from adding load.  Bought a new electric vehicle? Too bad for you, you should have bought a generator to charge it.

I know that sounds doomsday fantastic.  That's because people are so used to flipping a switch and not even thinking about the light coming on.  But the electric systems that are out of mind for the vast majority of people have a capacity limit and a useful life just the same as any other system.  Generating stations, transmission lines, substations, and distribution networks take years to plan and build and that's assuming there are no major environmental hurdles that make the process longer.  And all that on top of the effort, resource commitment, and cost to maintain what we have.  You can buy electric vehicles to plug in a lot faster than you can build the infrastructure to support them.

What will develop then will be small, local, private microgrids that won't be subject to the same regulations as the utilities.  These, of course, will develop where there is a dense enough population - with enough disposable income - to support the investment the microgrid operators have to make.  Power will be expensive, but if you have enough money you don't really care, and if you want/need it badly enough you'll pay the price. 

Places like hospitals and data centers will probably be among the first to set these up, as they already have installed generators (likely diesels), have fairly steady loads that are easier to manage, and don't have much choice about going without.  Look for hospitals, etc that set up a microgrid to sell whatever excess power they can to offset operating costs or even perhaps turn a profit.

 

[Bikeguy]

39 minutes ago, maddmaxx said:

modern load shedding capacitor banks could save them lots of money through power factor correcting.

That depends on the utility.   Our bills were based on KW and KWH, not KVAR.   We even quit measuring power factor and assessing penalties for low PF at a customer site.   So I'd guess you would not save much (if anything) by having a better PF in our service area. 

[MoseySusan]

45 minutes ago, Thaddeus Kosciuszko said:

  Bought a new electric vehicle? Too bad for you, you should have bought a generator to charge it.

A solar panel array? 

[Bikeguy]

43 minutes ago, Thaddeus Kosciuszko said:

You can buy electric vehicles to plug in a lot faster than you can build the infrastructure to support them.

Yeah...  wait for places to have power outages when too many people plug in their new electric cars at their homes. 

[Bikeguy]

6 minutes ago, MoseySusan said:

A solar panel array? 

Yes, and a battery system to store the power.  The energy in the storage battery can be used to charge the car, and possibly provide power to the home too. 

It all depends on the size solar panels, the size of the storage battery(s), and how much the power is actually collected from the solar panels. 

https://unboundsolar.com/solar-information/tesla-powerwall-for-solar

I'm sure there will be income tax credits for this...  but it probably won't cover all of the costs.

[shootingstar]

Where I am, the electrical system in the area might be a bit stressed with more highrise buildings.  However with covid restrictions still on, many office towers under-utilitizing power with people working from home, it's just masking very slow development of possible future problems.

I am unclear how the utility firms finance expansion of their systems in our jursidiction, aside from their rates to consumers. But I will say this:  City of Calgary negotiated incredibly hard with major telecom, electrical and gas firms to PAY fees to the municipality to lay their lines in our municipal right of ways. We were not going to allow them to do it scot-free without our technical requirements in place. This is not typical in Canada....we were probably leading in this effort compared to other Canadian big cities.  This took several years to put into place. Although the firms wouldn't admit it, we probably improved their quality of drawings and shortened overall turnaround time of approvals by us, which in turn saved them staff time and their own internal cost.  OUr fees were laid as a stick to reduce their submission of shitty drawing quality for us to approve.  I was the person reporting on metrics for these firms' performance. (A total different part of my job a few yrs. ago.)

There are some people in govn't who will go far, on behalf for the citizens/residents. We just don't hear about it...because it will annoy the big firms. 

Just giving this example at a lower level in the big picture of adequate power infrastructure, where effort at this level must be paid attention with strong central player that demands adherence to technical quality installations, also since it also contributes to the big power pic.

 

 

[Thaddeus Kosciuszko]

33 minutes ago, Bikeguy said:

Yes, and a battery system to store the power.  The energy in the storage battery can be used to charge the car, and possibly provide power to the home too. 

It all depends on the size solar panels, the size of the storage battery(s), and how much the power is actually collected from the solar panels. 

https://unboundsolar.com/solar-information/tesla-powerwall-for-solar

I'm sure there will be income tax credits for this...  but it probably won't cover all of the costs.

All true.

But keep in mind the capacity of your home battery system has to be large enough to put a full charge into your car, and to do it at a fast enough rate that it's ready to drive when you want to go.  If your home battery system is the same size as your car's battery, your car battery will charge to the point where the two equalize.  Beyond that point there's no energy difference to drive more 'charge' from the home system into the car.  If your home system is larger than your car battery, the charge rate will still slow down as the home battery is depleted and the car battery is replenished.  To get a full vehicle charge may take some time.

Solar could work, provided as Bikeguy noted you have enough area to lay out enough panels to charge your home battery system sufficiently to recharge your car and you have a good weather day.  And the local zoning laws allow you to paste enough solar panels around your home and yard to get the capacity you need.  And you can afford to install a system that essentially creates your own microgrid on your property. 

Consider, though, that most residential solar arrays you see today don't provide all of property's needs, let alone adding the additional burden of charging a car.  Most systems only offset part of the electrical load and depend on the grid to make up the difference.  Otherwise, you certainly know people would be cutting free from the utility if their solar array were powerful enough to allow it.

 

 

[Square Wheels]

We allowed a couple of different solar companies into our house over the years.  I'm a skeptic in general, but these programs feel like a scam.  I pay them to put panels on my roof, they put up way more than I need and sell a significant amount of it to the power company, I reduce my burden on the system by about 75% and still need to buy power from the power company.  It seems to benefit the solar companies who make a lot of money, the power company who gets an additional source of energy, and it's debatable if it helps me at all.

Why not allow me to invest in my own panels (allowed in my state) and put 150% of what I need on my roof (not allowed), get a couple of large batteries (allowed) to ensure I am supplied at 100% all the time, and sell the rest back to the grid (no longer allowed)?  Everybody wins.  I would spend the 20 grand it would cost.

[Wilbur ★]

I don't think a 100% electric vehicle goal is even remotely possible.  We should be looking at ways to maximize efficiencies of fossil fuel, supplemented by electricity or maybe nitrogen but it is just politics to suggest a target of all electric vehicles by 2030.  That would be an environmental and economic disaster.  It would also require a lot of fossil fuels to accomplish. 

[Square Wheels]

Is the goal of electric vehicles to reduce dependence on fossil fuels?  Doesn't seem like switching to electric vehicles solves that.

2018 Total System Electric Generation in Gigawatt Hours

Fuel Type	California In-State Generation (GWh)	Percent of California In-State Generation	Northwest Imports (GWh)	Southwest Imports (GWh)	California Energy Mix (GWh)	California Power Mix
Coal	294	0.15%	399	8,740	9,433	3.30%
Large Hydro	22,096	11.34%	7,418	985	30,499	10.68%
Natural Gas	90,691	46.54%	49	8,904	99,644	34.91%
Nuclear	18,268	9.38%	0	7,573	25,841	9.05%
Oil	35	0.02%	0	0	35	0.01%
Other (Petroleum Coke/Waste Heat)	430	0.22%	0	9	439	0.15%
Renewables	63,028	32.35%	14,074	12,400	89,502	31.36%
Biomass	5,909	3.03%	772	26	6,707	2.35%
Geothermal	11,528	5.92%	171	1,269	12,968	4.54%
Small Hydro	4,248	2.18%	334	1	4,583	1.61%
Solar	27,265	13.99%	174	5,094	32,533	11.40%
Wind	14,078	7.23%	12,623	6,010	32,711	11.46%
Unspecified Sources of Power	N/A	N/A	17,576	12,519	30,095	10.54%
Total	194,842	100.00%	39,517	51,130	285,488	100.00%

Source: CEC-1304 Power Plant Owners Reporting Form and SB 1305 Reporting Regulations.
In-state generation is reported generation from units one megawatt and larger.

Data as of June 24, 2019

[Further]

10 hours ago, Bikeguy said:

That depends on the utility.   Our bills were based on KW and KWH, not KVAR.   We even quit measuring power factor and assessing penalties for low PF at a customer site.   So I'd guess you would not save much (if anything) by having a better PF in our service area. 

They have been disconnecting and abandoning capacitor banks at the mill. They are old and prone to failure, and apparently aren't considered worth replacing.

I do remember installing a lot of power factor correction capacitors back in the early 90's 

[Airehead]

@Allen, is your power back on?

[JerrySTL ★]

Buy a portable generator. After I bought mine, power outages went down to one a year. If you are prepared for it, it doesn't happen as often.

[Ralphie ★]

6 minutes ago, JerrySTL said:

Buy a portable generator. After I bought mine, power outages went down to one a year. If you are prepared for it, it doesn't happen as often.

So buying an expensive permanent automatic whole house one would be great insurance!

[Allen ★]

22 minutes ago, Airehead said:

@Allen, is your power back on?

It is. Transformer down the road blew. Took out several neighbors too. 
 

 

[Airehead]

10 hours ago, Philander Seabury said:

So buying an expensive permanent automatic whole house one would be great insurance!

Exactly the experience we have had. Power almost never goes out now. 

[Longjohn ★]

Need to charge your electric car? Apple gives you a lightning charger when you buy a new phone. That gave me an idea. Harness the power of lightning. Do you know how much electricity is in just one bolt of lightning?

[Thaddeus Kosciuszko]

21 hours ago, Square Wheels said:

I'm a skeptic in general, but these programs feel like a scam.

Very good intuition on your part.

Many solar company contracts require the buyer of your house to renew or assume the lease on the solar panels, often at the cost of thousands of dollars.  That prices your house out of the market.  Or you could buy out the lease, which will also cost you thousands of dollars.  I know someone doing a flip and they had to pay the solar panel company ten thousand dollars to terminate the lease.

The contracts also often specify that the company is the only one who can move the panels should you need a new roof.  A new roof is expensive as it is, but if you need to move the panels out of the way the solar company can charge what they want unless the contract places limits.  Then you have to pay them to reinstall the system after the roof is done.

I worked on a project where a building renovation required removing the solar panels as well as the all the electric/electronics that connected the panels to the grid.  The solar company was having financial troubles and was not responding to the building owner's calls and letters to get the equipment moved.  Then the owner went back through their legal documents and found that while the building owner had signed the contract, the solar company never did.  Oops.  The system was removed by the owner's contractors.  The solar company went under soon afterward, unsurprisingly.

[MickinMD ★]

On 9/10/2021 at 7:56 PM, Allen said:

I’ve lost count of how many times my power has gone out this year. It’s not even raining. Me thinks the EMC needs to spend some funds on infrastructure. 

My location loses power for more than a few minutes about once a year, often due to something like a car running into a telephone pole.  Out for a second to a few minutes is, unfortunately, a 10x or more/year thing, often due to old lines being replaced and the power being intentionally shut down from time to time without notice, usually during warm weather.

My power went out for about 1 second each time on two days in the past week.

The last time, it caused the circuit breaker to blow on the line that powers my Verizon Fios control boxes (that take the line from the telephone pole) in the basement.

That worried me because the Verizon stuff is plugged into the circuit breaker box that's on the same line as my forced air furnace's power.  I'm considering putting the Fios stuff on a different outlet because if there's a connection between the Fios stuff causing a breaker to pop (the furnace and central air were both turned off at the time), I don't want to lose furnace power while sleeping at night, though I doubt the temperature would drop much before I got up no matter how cold outside.

My late Uncle John, living outside of Wilkes-Barre, PA, had lots of money but was too set in his ways to get rid of the coal-fired furnace he had and get oil or gas.  When his dead body was found in the Winter after being out of touch a few days, the furnace had run out of coal and the verdict was that he froze to death.  But it's likely he died in his sleep long before the furnace went out, though I still thought about that when the breaker controlling the furnace's electricity went out.