http://1010wins.com/pages/64131.php

With the summer heat, everyone is using their A/C's and causing power outages in NYC. Are these outages happening at a local level, like a small substation, or is it possible to see something more catastrophic? I live outside of Pittsburgh, and from what I understand, we have plenty of power to go around because they built plants for the electric furnaces for the steel mills, but by the time they were built, the steel mills left. My main question is can we expect a huge power outage like the one that hit New York and other states a few years ago, or maybe just a few substations going down?
-Josh

Josh:
From New Jersey (papers & discussion w/utility):

Montclair (Suburban Town); 'Downtown Business Area, underground dist., overloaded feeders, manhole fires, failures. Estimated re-power was approx. a2-a8 hrs for all affected. Same areas got hit with violent t'storms, approx 1 week ago; extensive tree damage, lines down, etc.

Area I live in (Brick) has been holding steady, to which I say Thanks.

Staten Island NY had severe problems last few days, along with Queens, NY again. Our utility sent numerous crews to help out.

We must have a lineman on the forum that has details.

John

Apparently, in my neigborhood the POCO has updated a transformer that used to blow on the hottest day of the year, every year. We just had the hottest day of the year 3 DAYS IN A ROW and no blackouts here. But NJ has had a few.

IMO it could be intentional voltage reductions or rolling blackouts, overloads or weather (as in lines falling on trees). To date this summer, any outages experienced in rural MidWesten Ontario have been due to the effects of wind/lightning storms.

In Texas, it's a shortage of transmission, not generation. Like having a healthy heart, but your arterys are shot.

I live on the gulf coast so we are used to this type weather. However, your temps are showing higher than we are having. With the humidity it seems a lot hotter. Maybe we need to listen to Al Gore.

[This message has been edited by Bob (edited 08-03-2006).]

In NYC, the POCO is purposefully reducing voltage by 8% in some cases, to reduce power consumption (lots of resistive loads).

Bob,
You have me hanging on your last word, I'm excited. What could Gore have possibly said regarding this problem. I realize he said "I took the initiative in creating the Internet.", but can he reduce power distribution outages by inventing something ..... like wireless power distribution or something?

Let's face it... POCO's play fast and loose with the rules. We have to follow code, but the POCO's do anything they want.

Perfect recent in the case of the "utility in question" example: POCO comes out to reset a CB on a pole XFMR that keeps tripping. The XFMR feeds two commercial buildings. Solution? Simply replace the 150KVA with a 225KVA! Of course, none of the feeders are upsized, so what happens? A nice manhole explosion and the building loses power.

The reason the CB kept tripping was the insulation rotted away in the manhole, resulting in an intermittent fault. But the 500 MCM cable (parallel feed) was no longer a match for that 225 KVA XFMR, so when the fault occurred, instead of trip they got boom.

Residential is even worse. 60-100A service upgrades to 200A are almost always done without upgrading feeders. You feel kind of stupid connecting a big fat 3/0 to a puny #2, but that's what done.

Heck in my house, I got a 2/0 copper feeder coming into a J-box, which feeds 2 of my neighbors via #4 or #2 (I forget which now, it's sealed) aluminum, which in turn feeds their neighbors with #4 or #2 as well. I'd hate to be the ones on the end of the line. So here I got a 3/0 copper connected to a #4 or #2 aluminum from the POCO and all is good in their book.

Now I realize that services often do not reach their maximum potential load, but the POCO should size their equipment to deal with such load. Anything less is what leads to the problems we're been seeing. A good place to start would be to force the POCO to follow the NEC just like the rest of us have to.

Joe

http://www.cnsnews.com/facts/factorama.asp


What was that about global warming?

I might be pull this out of my "head," but I think Tesla was experimenting with wireless power transmission (hence Tesla coils).

I don't want to get into a political discussion but you're correct... let's also look at when some of the LOWEST temperatures EVER were recorded:

–69F / Peter's Sink, - Feb. 1, 1985 Peter's Sink
-61F / Maybell, Colorado – Feb. 1, 1985
–60F / Tower, Minnesota - Feb. 2, 1996
-55F / Couderay, Wisconsin – Feb. 4, 1996
-47F / Elkader Iowa – Feb. 3, 1996
-37F / Shelbyville, Kentucky - Jan. 19, 1994
–36F / Congerville, Illinois - Jan. 5, 1999
-36F / Whiteplan, Indiana - Jan. 19, 1994
-34F / Mt. Mitchell, North Carolina - Jan. 21, 1985
-30F / Mountain Lake, Virginia - Jan. 22, 1985

And the coldest temperature ever recorded in the entire world:

-129 / Vostock, Antartica - July 21, 1983

In view of the foregoing, it looks like a little global warming would do us some good. And we'd better HOPE there's global warming, because it looks like our survival depends on it: In the last 800,000 we've gone through a number of ice ages lasting some 10,000 years. It has been 10,500 years since the last age, so we're clearly overdue for another one. Better all buy SUV's to SAVE the planet.

In any event, the electrical problems do not have anything to do with global warming. They have to do with increased demand, which will continue to grow. How many homes even 30 years ago had central air, PC's, plazma TV's, steam generators, bread warmers, wine coolers, halogen lighting... heck even cheapo hairdryers use 1850 watts. All this stuff uses power, and we just haven't upgrade the infrastruture.

It's as hot as hell in Saudi Arabia and Phoenix, and they deal with it without virtually no problems.

Joe

When it's all said and done, we in the USA have no concept of moderation and will never believe that WE USE WAY MORE POWER THAN WE NEED TO!
I've worked at our POCO (a cooperative, actually) for 24 years. When I started, we were taking down 5 KVA pots and hanging 7.5's and 10's. Then it was 15's. Now we regularly hang 25 and 37.5 KVA transformers on "average" residences. It's the same reason we're the fattest people on earth, we have no sense of restraint.

.....calm blue ocean, calm blue ocean......

What makes me really mad is stuff like "warehouse" stores (Lowes, Home Depot, etc.) They are One story, with a solid roof. Why not replace some lights with skylights? Even on cloudy days, a skylight will provide as much light (or more) that the normal lights.

Here's what I do to conserve energy:
-Use compact fluorescents
-Use a fan and draw air from the woods behind my house. It's usually pretty cool, especially at night.
-Use a dehumidifier instead of the A/C
-Spend free time woodworking in the basement, where it's pretty cool
-Turn off my beer fridge when I'm all out of brew (and place a towel in there for when it defrosts, I'll clean it later)

I'm pretty prepared for a power outage. My UPS will power a CPFL for about an hour. I got an acoustic guitar. The Red Stripe will stay cool for a few hours, so I'm all good

Red stripe - helping our white friends dance for over 25 years! Sorry I could not resist, it my favorite commercial....

Now lemme throw out a few questions here: Why would they reduce voltage? Would this not drive amperage UP? And further load the generators and transformers up as well?

Now.... Right after the first of these NY black-outs (Last year), I heard that a PUC, and the POCO had a big hupla. And this year apparently, they are now at odds because the POCO did not follow the recommendations from the last one. (Its not as if they are poor - and it is they're money maker) This time they actually pushed most of the systems to the limit knowingly to failure. Because last time they shut off some nieghborhoods, and were accused of shutting off poorer ones as a sacrifice to the richer ones and got a bunch of flak about it.

IMO this can be tallied on two cards:

Money (Theft of it)
Sorry all I can think of when I hear black-out is Ken Lay and his "Dark Star" plot that he got away with bilking almost billions of dollars from California. "Supply and demand you now" meanwhile he is purposefully shutting down plants to drive rates through the roof. Doing the rolling black-out thing to drive up the fear.

Politics
Because for the most part it is not about lack of fund as to why the 'infrastructure' is not being built. Pushing the question of who is going to get emminant domain to build a nuke plant in your backyard, and a heathy tax break for doing it. Or some other scam.... The whimper of 'oh, our hands are tied by the government' (representing us) is a crock! They just want to pay less to build thier buisiness, in fact want you to pay for it en-toto. Then charge more for it! A black out here and there only helps the hype....

With the various kinds of loads on the grid, power companies have found that they can reduce power consumption by about 1% per volt of voltage reduction, measured on a 120V outlet. Resistive loads' consumption drops more than that, but that is offset by A/C motors to some extent, as they will draw more current to get the same wattage. But they still can reduce load by dropping voltage. Which could help avoid load shedding.

QUOTE: Why would they reduce voltage? Would this not drive amperage UP? And further load the generators and transformers up as well?

AS NOTED, IT WORKS BETTER ON RESISTIVE LOADS, BUT IT HAS BEEN OUR EXPERIENCE THAT IT STILL HELPS (ALBEIT MORE IN THE WINTER THAN SUMMER.

QUOTE: This time they actually pushed most of the systems to the limit knowingly to failure.

I'VE HEARD THIS ARGUMENT BEFORE AND I'VE NEVER COMPREHENDED IT. AS YOU LAST STATED, SELLING POWER IS THEIR BREAD AND BUTTER. IT IS NOT TO THEIR BENEFIT TO HAVE OUTAGES. (See the reference to SAIDI and CAIDI below).


QUOTE: Sorry all I can think of when I hear black-out is Ken Lay and his "Dark Star" plot that he got away with bilking almost billions of dollars from California. "Supply and demand you now" meanwhile he is purposefully shutting down plants to drive rates through the roof. Doing the rolling black-out thing to drive up the fear.

I COULDN'T AGREE MORE. "DEREGULATION" IS THE BIGGEST RIP-OFF OF THE AMERICAN CONSUMER IN THE LAST 50 YEARS. ANY GOOD BUSINESS MAN WILL TELL YOU THAT TO SUCCEED, YOU ELIMINATE THE MIDDLE MAN. ALL DE-REGULATION DID WAS CREATE A MIDDLE MAN. GUESS WHO PICKED UP THE TAB?

QUOTE (sort of): for the most part it is not about lack of fund as to why the 'infrastructure' is not being built. Pushing the question of who is going to get emminant domain to build a nuke plant in your backyard, and a heathy tax break for doing it.

HALF RIGHT. AS I NOTED, IN TEXAS, THE LIMITATION IS IN TRANSMISSION, NOT GENERATION. EVERYBODY WANTS POWER-NOBODY WANTS IT IN THEIR OWN BACKYARD. (Your backyard is great, but not mine).
THAT'S HOW CALIFORNIA SCREWED THEMSELVES. THEY ALL LIKE THEIR AC....AS LONG AS THE GENERATING PLANTS AREN'T NEXT DOOR. AND YOU CAN'T BUILD ONE IF IT SMELLS, LOOKS BAD, ENDANGERS A SNAIL-DARTER, ETC. NOBODY WANTS A TRANSMISSION LINE EITHER. IT TAKES LITERALLY YEARS OF CONDEMNATION PROCEEDINGS TO GET ONE BUILT (WHICH IS ALMOST AS EXPENSIVE AS THE CONSTRUCTION).

REMEMBER THIS ABOVE ALL ELSE. YOU CAN'T HAVE YOUR CAKE AND EAT IT TOO.

QUOTE: The whimper of 'oh, our hands are tied by the government'

EVER HEAR OF THE EPA? EVER WONDERED WHY WE'RE STILL BURNING COAL GENERATION INSTEAD OF NUECLEAR? EVER BEEN TO A "CCN" (CERTIFICATE OF CONVENIENCE AND NECESSITY) HEARING TO JUSTIFY A NEW LINE AND HAVE THE WHOLE THING BLOCKED BECAUSE YOU'RE TRYING TO BUILD IT ACROSS A CONGRESSMAN'S RANCH?

e57....Let me apologize to you right off. I'm stating all this "you" stuff rhetorically. I'm not accusing you....you just happened to post a thread that was easy to respond to.

Obviously I'm on a rant here.

I just get tired of our customers complaining about the lights going out, but when it turns out that it is THEIR tree in the line doing it, then they sue us for cutting it. They insist we build infrastructure, but fight us tooth and nail when we do it.
Have you ever heard of SAIDI and CAIDI figures? These are indices that indicate frequency and duration of outages. If a utility lets them get below par, it can be fined (substatially so in some cases). And yet we still get accused of "willfully" creating outages.

.... my wife has noticed me beating the keyboard like a circus monkey.

She's bring me a Red Stripe!

All is well.........

Conserve... FOR WHAT? This IS America, and America has NEVER been about doing with less.

The fact that we consume more energy than anyone else is indicative of economic growth and progress. It is precisely why we have the greatest GDP in the world.

We could of course be more like Third World countries and use very little power. Or we could be forced to "conserve" like in Cuba, which has gotten a bit of press lately.

I am also quite puzzled to hear ELECTRICIANS advocating conservation of all things. Is it that you want to be out of work or something? Every electrician should be THRILLED that consumption is increasing!

I mean really, when a homeowner calls you to install a 30A circuit for a proposed central A/C unit, do you tell them to use fans instead to "conserve" energy? When a business calls to upgrade their service from 600A to 1,200A do you tell them to stop producing so much because all that production is wasteful?

The old saying be careful what you wish for certainly applies here. Better hope energy conservation never really catches on (though sadly, too many buy into this BS) otherwise most of the posts here will be about things like "low pay rates" and "no business" and "will things ever pick up".

Consumption = job security + higher pay. Conservation = low pay + unemployment.

Joe

Joe,
I hope I didn't offend you with my "conservation" thing. (And I sincerely mean it, I wasn't really thinking about the biz). I just thing in general that it's stupid to put up a roof blocking natural light and putting in synthetic light.

The best way to conserve energy is to live like a caveman, but who wants to do that? We do need a balance. Yes, installing central air is a good thing, but maybe run it at 75 degrees instead of 72. I'm just saying there's things we really don't need. Personally, I'd love to have an air conditioner, but since I'm still a student, I'm on a very limited budget. I have to choose whether I want to be cooler or if I wanna eat.

I'm NOT advocating throwing every high-power device out. I still use power tools to fix up my friend's house (I'm renting a room off of him, but he lets me pay less than our agreed rent because I'm always fixing up the house. Sorry, back to the point.)
For example:
When I wired our kitchen (permitted and inspected. Inspector didn't believe me when I said i did it myself.), we put in 6 circuits. 2 small appliance, 1 fridge, 1 microwave, 1 coffee maker (industrial size), 1 dishwasher. I'm not saying let's limit the number of circutis we put in, let's just not use them if we don't need them. Turn off the lights you're not using, etc.

Electricity is a tool. But think about it, how many pairs of kleins do you have? Do you use a pair for every room? If you did, that would be wasteful. Same with using electricity, or any other energy. Central air, for example. If your customer works every day 9-5, why not suggest to use a digital thermostat with a timer. Same labor, and therefore same money (plus whatever markup on devices), and then they have a nice money saving feature that the $30 or whatever markup you charge, they will save in energy bills and gain convenience. It will be worth it. It can be off from 9:00 until 4:30. It will be cool at all times they are at home.

Use whatever you need, but don't waste it. Do you take the scenic route to your job? No, because you'll waste gas.

Folks.

Lets get back on track here, this is not a political forum of any shape or form.

Keep the posts geared to direct electrical topics, not the pros and cons of Nukes, Conservation, the Power companies motives or actions etc.

---------------------------------------------

As far as power outages I just got back late Friday from a road trip of about 220 miles. The company I work for was asked by Connecticut light and power to go down to Stamford CT to connect generators to businesses without power.

We used 1000's of feet of 4/0 portable power cable.

We connected a 400 KW, a 300 KW, 3 - 125 KW and another 4 - 40 KW units into all kinds of businesses.

We had 4 to 7 guys on from 4 AM Thursday straight through till 6 PM Friday.

I can't tell you the cause but the result for me and my coworkers will be large paychecks.

Bob




[This message has been edited by iwire (edited 08-06-2006).]

iwire: Large paychecks indeed! Are you running copper or aluminum?
-----------------------------------------
To The Board:
I apologize for bringing up conservation and such, I didn't realize It might get a bad response.

No apology necessary. It was a legitimate question that deserves discussion and I vented when I shouldn't have.
My apologies.

Sorry Bob, but on topic of power outages, how can one avoid the root causes? Generation and transmision failure due to the lack of infrastructure - A now inadaquate infrastructure due to rising use and demand via a lack of conservation. It might sound political, but its the politics of the electrical industry that is the cause of the outages IMO. (Electrical politics )

How many of us have helped customers skirt energy codes? (For states that have them)

[This message has been edited by e57 (edited 08-06-2006).]

By not bringing up what each of us perceive to be the root cause.

We can say it was an overloaded feeder but we do not have to say the overload was caused by Ted Kennedy's beverage cooler.

You know how it works, if we were to talk about politics, religion, etc. we would quickly have some heated debates that IMO will not help the purpose of an electrical forum.

This is just my opinion, I am not a moderator of this section.

Selfish I know; I'm trying hard to use less energy for anything but political reasons. I'm trying to save money to have more disposable income for me! (To squander on food and taxes!)

I don't know who 'Ken Lay' is, what he's been scheming and really couldn't care less. The more electricity goes up in price, the more I try to save. Poco's can only raise prices to the point where generating your own becomes viable. I foresee we in the West will suddenly catch the fad and go 'economy' mad. You will all be rushed off your feet wiring up photovoltaic panels properly, [ BTW, these latter have just appeared in a UK mass-market retail store, so expect to see lots of News Items about electrocuted DYI'ers falling off roofs! ], home windmills and geothermal heat pumps, etc..

Relax while you have the chance!

Alan

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article1207607.ece

ps. they reckon about US$16,000 for an average home to cut poco power use by 50%.
Here's their site: http://www.currys.co.uk/solarpower/index.html

[This message has been edited by Alan Belson (edited 08-06-2006).]

[This message has been edited by Alan Belson (edited 08-06-2006).]

ROTFL Are you trying to say it pulls 50KVA?

I know what youre saying but dont see it as a red/blue or four horsemen item.

But seriously, a micro example would be putting a 30Ksq' office space on a 50A feeder because it works most of the time. And knowing full and well it wont work on monday mornings in the summer.

Either last year or 2004 there was a huge power outage on Seaside Island. The catch? It was the 4th of July. The city sued the POCO, and now you cant drive anywhere in Mercer, Burlington or Atlantic Counties without seeing new HV lines being installed. They also upped the feed to the island itself.

Ian A.