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Massive Texas power outage

ground grids load break elbows pea gravel special transformers.

I’m not going to get into this I’m already in too far
Poles are much cheaper trust me
 
DPC said:
ground grids load break elbows pea gravel special transformers.

I’m not going to get into this I’m already in too far
Poles are much cheaper trust me
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It's expensive to bury it, I get it, but much of that is capital cost to the utility. There are all kinds of costs associated with having poles that are incremental and recurring, as well as the catastrophic stuff. Then you have the reliability angle, which is tough to put a price on. There will always be above ground distribution, it just plain makes sense in a lot of cases, it's fast, and relatively inexpensive.
 
Subdood said:
That's cool. What kind of EV do you have?

I see that there's still 200K without power in TX. It's like they seem to be getting it whittled down and bam! more storms hit. Guess the linemen are making some serious coin..
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22' Bolt EUV -- used to have a 2017 Volt that was paid for and in mint condition, till a human piece of garbage ran a red light and T-boned me on my way to work.
 
DPC said:
It makes sense on a residential are when building new infrastructure.

Personally I rather be on the ground working on a pad mount transformer than in a bucket truck working on a can.

View attachment 218587
This is a really old combination of parts.
As long as your under 5000 volts it’s relatively easy to do cable termination.
This is not a 5000 volt installation, and it was not really done to todays standards.
But consider the costs involved in having all the parts and fuses in metal clad enclosers on the ground in switchyards, fences barb wire to keep people out…

Your hydro rates would be higher to reflect the extra parts and steps required to electrify your neighbourhood compared to a pole top system
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Good possibility, but the town I am in has put most of the power lines under ground and the aesthetics alone makes it worth while.

The number one grid problem here is wind blowing down trees and power lines, causing outages and large fires, so to be honest, the equipment cost argument falls on deaf ears around here.
 
HarryN said:
Good possibility, but the town I am in has put most of the power lines under ground and the aesthetics alone makes it worth while.
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Above ground power lines are ugly as sin. We really should consider aesthetics at some point. Some places is just plain Ugly with a capital U because of all the utility and public works stuff.
 
Kornbread said:
Oh heck, I read your location wrong and mistook NE for NW Kentucky. We're in the very East part of MO, where that stuff picked up steam and headed towards KY, IL, and TN.

Don't get me wrong, having power was nice, cold showers not so much, but yeah, felt a tad bit guilty. Turned off all outside lights and pulled the curtains.
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Instead of feeling guilty, you should feel good about your decisions and investment.

Your home is now a refuge for your neighbors in case they really need power. They can learn from your efforts and replicate it.
 
HarryN said:
Instead of feeling guilty, you should feel good about your decisions and investment.

Your home is now a refuge for your neighbors in case they really need power. They can learn from your efforts and replicate it.
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Yeah, you get to be the ant.

1717193555827.jpeg
 
cs1234 said:
Yeah, you get to be the ant.

View attachment 218948
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it is a real challenge - I agree.

A few years ago ( as in 5 - 10 ) we had a large local outage for an extended period of time. it was a number of forest fires caused by power lines going down.

_______________

I had a minivan with a 2 kW inverter / 4 kW-hr AGM battery pack + solar on it, plus ability to plug in to 120 vac at home.

We had power, others did not due to just how the grid is.

Trying to be helpful, I put an adv on craigslist for my son to go around and provide an "hour of power" and a long extension cord to run power to get their refrigerators cooled down and devices charged up.

It would take about 3 - 4 hrs for each person, 2 - 3 hrs for driving / charging / setup. 1 hr of power, so I just assigned a modest hourly rate for my son to have some spending money and the rest of the actual use - more or less free.

I had to take the adv down and stop offering it because of threats from people that I was trying to gouge them and it was getting really out of control.

More or less many thousands of free hardware use, tying up the van, and me paying for the electricity - and still people were unhappy.
 
cs1234 said:
Yeah, you get to be the ant.

View attachment 218948
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I have several generators
1 or two would do but I have at any given time 4 or 5 depending on what comes and goes ( hobby I don’t run business I’m a pack rat rag n bone man )

Should it come to a significant power interruption due to weather all my stuff will be lent out because it costs me very little to have all this crap and mostly because I really like my neighbours

Come to think of it I have a bunch of inverters too!
I wonder if my wife is right and I should purge
 
Subdood said:
?

You're saying they're having 200 linemen sleep in a single conex?? I'm not getting what you're saying.
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Yeah 3-4 racks tall head to feet, 8 hr rotations one 40 foot trailer can house 90 guys.

Sure it’d take multiple trucks but again when it’s a mater of pure bodies/damage to get the lights on it’s amazing what emergency preparedness preparations can accomplish.

I know NH crews responded to a Florida hurricane or two and were housed in this type of set up. When double/triple time is involved it’s amazing what these guys are willing to do (some just would rather sleep in their trucks.
 
ksmithaz1 said:
Good to know you aren't bothered by it all that much.
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it's more the fact that at least in this part of TX it's the same people doing the same thing, over over. With zero consequences. Apparently we live in an age where you can hurt other people and face zero consequences.

Don't have a license? oh that's fine
Don't have insurance? oh that's fine
Hurt people repeatedly by not following basic rules like red means stop? oh that's fine.
Caused multiple other accidents and injuries? Oh that's fine.
 
dfw_dude said:
it's more the fact that at least in this part of TX it's the same people doing the same thing, over over. With zero consequences. Apparently we live in an age where you can hurt other people and face zero consequences.

Don't have a license? oh that's fine
Don't have insurance? oh that's fine
Hurt people repeatedly by not following basic rules like red means stop? oh that's fine.
Caused multiple other accidents and injuries? Oh that's fine.
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Maybe those other people had something like this in an agreement somewhere online, and you didn't see it.

"The Customer agrees to full indemnification for Signature Solar henceforth from any legal recourse relating to and arising out of the installation of the products purchased by the customer."

Substitute "Signature Solar" for "human piece of garbage" and "installation of the products purchased by the customer" for "interactions with the human piece of garbage" and they've got an ironclad way out of responsibility for their actions.
 
After Texas we here in NW AR got hit by several large tornadoes over Memorial weekend. Power is still out to many (I was fortunate enough to not ever lose power) and likely not going to be fully restored for maybe weeks to some people. The amount of devastation was pretty intensive. My local Elec. Co-Op serves some of the affected area and this morning in a Email they updated customers with how it is going. So far they have replaced 1200 power poles! They did not have numbers on transformers or wire but it must be a freakin lot. Makes me boggle at how much work must be needed over all of it.

Does make me wonder with all the states being recently impacted by Spring disasters if there is short supplies of commercial electric components.

The folks that make treated wood power poles are going to be busy.
 
Mattb4 said:
After Texas we here in NW AR got hit by several large tornadoes over Memorial weekend. Power is still out to many (I was fortunate enough to not ever lose power) and likely not going to be fully restored for maybe weeks to some people. The amount of devastation was pretty intensive. My local Elec. Co-Op serves some of the affected area and this morning in a Email they updated customers with how it is going. So far they have replaced 1200 power poles! They did not have numbers on transformers or wire but it must be a freakin lot. Makes me boggle at how much work must be needed over all of it.

Does make me wonder with all the states being recently impacted by Spring disasters if there is short supplies of commercial electric components.

The folks that make treated wood power poles are going to be busy.
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Stressing all the supply chains.
 
My folks in Temple, TX got hit by an F2 tornado Wednesday night and it took several thousand roofs off based on all the blue tarps I saw driving through there on Sunday. Their Power was out for four days and they lost most of their trees, but house was spared.

The next day on Thursday, an hour to the east of them, a Tornado went right over my house. Wiped out tons of big oak trees but miraculously our home was spared. Power here in our area was out (for everyone else) for 3 days. Was shocked to see that my panels were still attached and working.

My wife said it is official now.. our solar system with battery back up for the house has paid for itself! 🤣

This is what the tornado that hit us looked like on radar.
 

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Pinto Yates said:
My folks in Temple, TX got hit by an F2 tornado Wednesday night and it took several thousand roofs off based on all the blue tarps I saw driving through there on Sunday. Their Power was out for four days and they lost most of their trees, but house was spared.

The next day on Thursday, an hour to the east of them, a Tornado went right over my house. Wiped out tons of big oak trees but miraculously our home was spared. Power here in our area was out (for everyone else) for 3 days. Was shocked to see that my panels were still attached and working.

My wife said it is official now.. our solar system with battery back up for the house has paid for itself! 🤣

This is what the tornado that hit us looked like on radar.
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Will you be building a back up system for your Folks?
 
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