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| One life experience; explaining what we've come to expect | |
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| Topic Started: Mar 12 2014, 12:31 PM (71 Views) | |
| Phillip | Mar 12 2014, 12:31 PM Post #1 |
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Blue Star Member
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Electrical power outages are a nuisance when only for a few hours but can be costly in terms of food loss and water pipe damage if for an extended period of time. As a business the three main components are Generation, Transmission and Distribution. Of course other support departments are needed like computer services, billing, vehicle maintenance, customer service to name a few. One unique deparment handles the inter face between companies when something affects generation. For example on the east coast in the summer time when heat and humidity creates high demand if one utility has excess power they sell it for a premium to the one that needs the additional power. All that is nice to know since it shows that utilities work together to help keep people in power. Then comes cold miserable windy, wet snow or freezing rain icing lines toppling them causing a power outage. Assessing what is needed befor hand makes it easier for destribution line crews show up to replace downed line or poles. If a pole is needed the cross arms and insulators can be reused if undamaged. be. A line truck is used to dig the hole and set the new one after the crew replaces the needed hardware to support the new lines. Pretty smooth all the way and that is why distribution line crews can restore service as quickly as they do in many cases. Not as familiar is the work done by transmission crews. The construction crews work closely with the line crews but the process is a whole lot slower. Covering the landscape from the power plant (generation) to a sub station where distribution takes over is a whole other animal. Maybe seen but not thought about are those huge poles that cross the mountains, rivers and whatever is in their path to deliver anywhere from 500 to 750 thousand volts of electricity to those sub stations. From the sub station that is broken down to 7500 volts and finally to the power used in residential homes. The slow part of building a transmission line comes from the terrain and kind of height needed to produce the proper sag needed in those lines to adjust for weather. Cold and heat will expand or contract those lines. OK so now we have terrain and pole height. The tricky part is prepping the base for those poles. I'll give an example of one that took 3 & 1/2 weeks for one structure to be ready for use in early summer. The hole was 8 ft wide and 27ft. deep. A pre made cage with threaded anchor screws welded to the cage was lowered into that hole. Next was concrete trucks lined up to make one continous pour so there would be no separation in layers. Vibration tools used to assure no pockets in that quantity, then two weeks to allow the concrete to cure. Next came the pole sections, the 3 section would reach a combined height of 180ft. Each section lifted and set in place by using a helicopter. The bucket trucks used to life men and insulating bells to the arms that would hold them had a reach of 150ft. That meant 30 feet of ramp had to be pushed into place by dozer operators. All that for one tower and the line stretched for over 30 miles with a variety of structures to be built. The coordination it takes to dig, set and complete a section of line like that is a very satisfying experience. City or even rural distribution lines, access to those towers isn't difficult. Hunters, fishermen and people that just like to hike cleared right of ways can easily access those remote structures. No one around to observe. If distribution can take a week or more to restore power, I'll leave it up to the imagination what time it would take in the dead of winter to replace towers. Meanwhile the link between generation and distribution is broken. Having backup power would be high on my list of winter survival needs. |
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