More pics (yep, I've been going mad since I got this camera!).

Many new services are now being installed into a cabinet set into an outside wall:




Meters on older installations are generally located inside the house. On overhead feeds, they're usually on a board at high level in a ground-floor room. Where the feed comes in underground, the panel is more commonly located in a cupboard just above floor level. This one is typical:



This last one also has a PoCo owned timer which switches the dual-tariff meter over to cheap-rate at night.

The watthour meter looks closest to what's called an "A-base" meter in the US and Canada. Socket-based meters seem far more common here.

In a related posting you showed a 2-pole-supported transformer—any chance you know that one's kVA rating? Slang in the US calls similar mounting an "H-frame." Are the ‘pullout’-looking 415V fuses hotstick operated by the utility?

The lower meter looks pretty much like our meters in Austria, only the newer ones are completely translucent here.

Hard-wired meters instead of plug-in types seem to be the norm in most of Europe. The meters in France are of similar appearance.

The gray (2nd pic) or black (3rd pic) service fuse and cut-out you can see carries a cartridge fuse, generally between 60 and 100A for residential service, although there are still a few older services available with as little as 30A, but they're rare now. The neutral is just a bolted connection.

The service in the 2nd pic has the house ground just to a local rod, hence the absence of any grounding conductor in the box.

The 3rd pic shows the typical older service where grounding is to the cable armor.

The service neutral connection is where the grounding connection is made for houses wired for PME (Protective Multiple Earthing) -- Equivalent to normal U.S. practice.

Scott,
I'm not sure of the actual rating of that xfmr on the double pole. There is an ID plate on it but I couldn't make out the details.

I'm not sure whether the PoCo uses a stick on the 240/415V fuses or not. Possibly so for emergency load breaking to prevent getting close to a potential arc, but they're far enough down the pole for somebody to pull by hand from a ladder without getting anywhere near the 11kV.

Paul,

Great images!!! Glad you have an area here which you can post stuff and discuss power systems in the western Euopean areas - more specific the UK.

I lurk through here and really haved learned quite a bit from your area!

How's the digital camera treating you so far? Much better to simply download an image to your machine, then upload to the net - as opposed to shooting it [hoping to get the "right" shot], then scanning it, then tweaking the file size, then uploading!

I still use the film camera for stuff that is "worthy" ,
but the digital camera has become the tool of choice for work related stuff, or stuff to post online.

Scott S.E.T.

Glad you're enjoying the pics. I'll get some more to post when I get a chance.

The camera I'm using is only an "el cheapo" job, but it seems to work reasonably well. No built-in flash though. On some of the interior shots I had to position a 500W floodlight to get a good image.

I still have a Russian-made 35mm SLR camera that my parents bought for me when I was about 11. It's built like the proverbial tank! (The shutter release doesn't go "click", it goes "ker-chunk!")

Scott, I know you (and a few others) are interested in railroads. Next time I go into Norwich I'll take a few snaps for you, as that's the nearest electrified line.

BJ,

Re the xfmr on the double pole, I drove by there this afternoon and took some binoculars to get a closer look at the ID plate.

It's rated 100kVA, manufactured 1977. The secondary (wye) side is 433V max. with taps. That was the highest rating from our old 250/433V specification (more usually called 250/440V) before everything was standardized at 240/415V.

Thank you, Paul. Physical size and power rating of transformers can be a bit difficult to associate.

the usual meters used by the ESB are big ugly black Siemens ones, some of the more modern ones now incorporate remote digital meter reading systems.

Typically they're just a big ugly black box with horizontally rotating wheel & two rows of numbers.

They "enhance" the supply if there is serious electric heating (storage / underfloor) but generally electric heating is relatively rare in Ireland other than in a few "gold sheild homes" which were a 1980s ESB (PoCo) expirement.

Natural Gas / Pressure-jet oil heating is the norm.
Gas or Electric cooking (sometimes both.. Gas hob/electric oven or mixed hob) In rural areas a modern version of a big cast iron AGA type range which runs on natural gas / LPG / pressure-jet oil and provides 4 + ovens, cooking surfaces, heating via radiators and hot water is fairly common.

Also considering the current power crisis in Ireland the ESB is despearately trying to reduce consumption as they're at close to 100% safe capacity almost all of the time and are prevented by an EU competition directive from installing more generation capacity as they're supposed to be letting other people into the market. The new entrants are really arriving with too little too late.

a few stats:

2001:
Gross demand: 24224.1 MWh , Peak 4091 MWh
1998:
Gross demand: 20495 MWh , Peak 3436 MWh
1996:
Gross demand: 17734 MWh !!

** for international comparison sake
Ireland has a population of aprox 3,700,000 and an economy based heavily on services (Software (v. v. big %), finance, banking/insurance, telecoms and of course tourism) and light industry like pharma/biotech/high end electronics (e.g. processors)

basically very few heavy industries of the type that would consume massive amounts of power. (which is a good thing from an environmental perspective!) We pretty much skipped the industrial revolution with all its smoke and steel mills and went straight into the information age.

Paul,
How do you post a picture as a reply? I have a few interesting shots that the forum might like to see.

That's quite an increase in demand over 5 years. Are peat-burning power stations still in service in Ireland?

I remember seeing a power station in the middle of a peat bog while driving across the middle of Co. Mayo. I don't actually know how cleanly peat burns in this application.

I understand that there were similar power shortages in Ireland during the 1960s. Or so it would seem from this old RTE caption:

Still, it would take a good many TV sets turned off to equal the amount of power that could have been saved by just shutting down the TV transmitter!

Lyle,
I'll send an explanation of posting pics to you via e-mail.



[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 01-04-2003).]

Yeah there are still a few peat burning stations, The older ones are now shut / in the process of being shut down. The reason they exsist is pretty simple. Before natural gas was discovered Ireland had no other independent source of fossil fuel power. There's no signifigant coal, no oil etc so the 1940s, 50 and part of the 1960's sollution was to use peat. Most of those old stations were very inefficient and didn't meet modern EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) rules so were just closed down rather than replaced. However one new one recently opened in the midlands. Check out www.esb.ie for more details. The bulk of power now in Ireland is produced by natural gas (usually combined cycle [ i.e. gas turbine where the exhaust gas raises steam for a traditional thermal plant]) these units have been around for quite a while now and are a LOT more efficient than regular powerplants. There's also a relatively large coal fired station on the west coast at Moneypoint.

Hopefully the current competition laws don't force us into a california style energy crisis in the coming years!! I don't think the current government are stupid enough to let that happen though they're very business aware.