THE_GREAT_PICKLE t1_j5p8wm3 wrote
Reply to comment by ramblinroseEU72 in Why does this state seem to lose power so frequently? It’s always related to downed power lines from trees? Or is this a grid issue? by JayBisky
I lived in NH for 20ish years, lost power constantly. Lived in the metro Boston area for 10+ never lost power even once. We bought a house a few years ago back in NH, lost power within 2 days of moving here.
It’s an old grid and it’s all above ground. When it’s windy or snowy or super rainy, that screws with the power line. Whereas in Boston all of them are buried so it’s really rare.
vexingsilence t1_j5pa3ko wrote
Instead, Boston gets manhole fires and electrified metal plates on the road and side walks. Killed a couple dogs if I remember right.
Depends on many factors. If your area is powered by one set of lines, you lose that, you're out. In a more dense area, there's more lines, less chance of a single break causing a significant outage. If you're well away from civilization, you're also likely to be low on the list for restoration.
Look at the delivery fees on your electric bill right now and tell me you seriously want them to rebuild the entire infrastructure underground. Most of the state wouldn't be able to afford what would happen to that delivery fee.
AKBigDaddy t1_j5pq7ys wrote
> Look at the delivery fees on your electric bill right now and tell me you seriously want them to rebuild the entire infrastructure underground.
Yes please. I'll take a slightly higher light bill and power that rarely ever goes out over a slightly lower one and I lose power a few times a year.
vexingsilence t1_j5pr68w wrote
Wouldn't be slightly higher. Especially in areas where they encounter rock and need to either drill, blast, or both. A lot of people are struggling with utility costs as it is.
What they should do is build the line from Québec to lower electric costs, then maybe use some of the savings to do infrastructure work.
Tullyswimmer t1_j5pvrxi wrote
And what Reddit doesn't realize is that if you bury lines, when you have to cross 93 in the whites, it takes significantly more cable, even cost of drilling aside. Much easier to put two tall poles up and run a "straight" line across a valley then go down and back up.
AKBigDaddy t1_j5qijfs wrote
I don't disagree with the latter half of that, the line from QBC would be great. But it doesn't have to be a massive increase- a small increase, say 1c/kwh, and then use the proceeds to begin burying everything- start from the outside (rural areas will be easier to do this in and can be done with smaller impact to people trying to get around) and work your way into the cities. 1c/kwh across the entire state will not have a massive effect on each individual's bills, I'm a rather heavy user at 2800KWH and my bill would increase $28, but across the entire state, that adds up quickly.
Not to mention there are federal incentives for burying power lines (because the rest of the country has more or less figured out that burying them vastly improves resiliency against weather) to help offset the cost.
Last I saw it cost around $11500/mi to bury lines- not cheap by any means, but it could be covered in <10 years by a 1c/kwh increase statewide. Additionally, most new construction already has buried lines, no reason not to make that the standard.
Tullyswimmer t1_j5titgq wrote
> Last I saw it cost around $11500/mi to bury lines- not cheap by any means, but it could be covered in <10 years by a 1c/kwh increase statewide. Additionally, most new construction already has buried lines, no reason not to make that the standard.
Where did you see that? Because if it cost $2/foot to bury lines, the power companies would have buried all of them years ago.
The absolute cheapest per mile number I have found recently is $1.5 million to bury lines. Even in 2017, when Hydro Quebec floated the idea of burying 11 miles of lines (that didn't require any horizontal drilling, mind you), it was $4 million per mile
So if you have a way to put high voltage transmission lines in the ground for $2/foot, write Eversource and tell them because they'll be all over that.
AKBigDaddy t1_j5uz5yg wrote
This was in regards to poles and local service, the long distance HV Transmission isn't commonly buried AFAIK.
Tullyswimmer t1_j5v0pnj wrote
Doesn't have to be long distance HV transmission. Even just like 34k or 46k that would serve a neighborhood is going to get costly to bury.
vexingsilence t1_j5qljju wrote
Rural maybe, if it doesn't interfere with their ability to upgrade the lines as the population grows. Cities.. that may be a hard sell. Doubt a lot of people would want their yards ripped up just to get the electricity that they already get.
That's all assuming your analysis is correct, which I'm skeptical of.
AKBigDaddy t1_j5qricx wrote
> Doubt a lot of people would want their yards ripped up just to get the electricity that they already get.
I dunno, a simple "Hey we're going to tear it up, put it back as best we can, but at the end of it you'll have power that will never go down due to weather" I bet the vast majority would be on board.
vexingsilence t1_j5qsc1u wrote
Doubt it since power outages in the cities are pretty rare. Then how would the street lights work? Have to replace the wood poles with ones with interior wiring? But then the cable/phone/internet and in some cases fire alarm are all hanging on the existing poles. To do it right would be a lot move involved.
AKBigDaddy t1_j5qtu89 wrote
> But then the cable/phone/internet and in some cases fire alarm are all hanging on the existing poles.
They solved this problem elsewhere... they buried those too, and is also a great way to defray the costs so it's not 100% on the electric company. Maybe ask ATT/comcast to dip into their portion of the $1,000,000,000,000 (yes, 1 TRILLION DOLLARS) that has been given to internet providers to increase broadband availability that never got used appropriately to cover some of the cost?
vexingsilence t1_j5qufgy wrote
Yea, right. They'd just jack our rates even more. Probably end up in court since the utilities won't look kindly on Eversource trying to pass on some of the costs. And it's not the same phone/cable company throughout the state, to complicate things further.
Or.. you know, just leave the wires on the poles and call it done.
AKBigDaddy t1_j5rxvzt wrote
Until the next storm and then we re hang them. Those will last until the next storm. And so on
vexingsilence t1_j5sev2v wrote
You make it sound like everything falls off the poles every storm. They'll fix it. If it's that much of a problem, get a generator.
AKBigDaddy t1_j5uzk6e wrote
> If it's that much of a problem, get a generator.
What a solution! Instead of everyone paying a few extra dollars on their light bill and improving things for everyone, people should go out and spend $10k+ on a standby generator! Or $1k and only power a few items.
vexingsilence t1_j5v09de wrote
Precisely. Why do I want to pay anything extra for your comfort and convenience? You chose to live someplace where infrastructure is lacking, you weren't forced to live there. Find a solution with your own money, you're not welcome to mine.
AKBigDaddy t1_j5w174s wrote
Ok boomer. How does it feel knowing that you, and people like you, are actively making the world a worse place?
vexingsilence t1_j5w1zdk wrote
Move to a city if you want more reliable electricity. Geniuses like you choose to live in areas that don't have the creature comforts you want, then you bitch about it and try to force the rest of us to pay it.
AKBigDaddy t1_j5yglkj wrote
I grew up in fucking Alaska, they even figured this shit out. It's assholes like you digging your feet in holding everyone back.
vexingsilence t1_j5z1nm6 wrote
Move back to Alaska then. Or pay for it yourself. You're not even from around here but you want people to pay to increase the reliability of your electric service? That's some entitlement.
AKBigDaddy t1_j5z3576 wrote
> Or pay for it yourself.
That's exactly what I'm suggesting, I pay for my portion, you pay for yours, and by everyone pitching in and paying a small portion of it, we all get more reliable power.
vexingsilence t1_j5z3spi wrote
No, because it will cost a lot more per service point in rural areas than it will in denser city areas. Yet when work like this gets done, the costs tend to be evenly distributed. Besides which, we don't need this in the cities. The power doesn't go out that often. Might be nice for aesthetic reasons but it's not worth the disruption.
Tullyswimmer t1_j5tiew4 wrote
Except most people know that that would be a complete lie. The powerlines in front of your house are almost never the ones that cause an outage. Outages usually happen upstream when they affect thousands of people.
AKBigDaddy t1_j5uzd5h wrote
In 5 years in this particular house we've lost power at least a couple days every winter, it has consistently been local lines down due to trees or weather.
ElisabetSobeckPhD t1_j5s0gop wrote
they literally just raised rates like $.11/kwh
AKBigDaddy t1_j5uz0oo wrote
And would your lifestyle be dramatically different if they raised them .12 instead of .11?
ElisabetSobeckPhD t1_j5v175e wrote
Personally no, but just saying "raise rates $0.01/kwh and bury the lines" is likely a vast oversimplification. Retrofitting buried electric across the state is a monumental task, when you consider the geography combined with a bunch of people who don't want people interfering with their property. Also consider the huge amount of people that were struggling to afford living here, even before the rate hikes.
I read this article from 2009 that makes it seem fairly unpalatable.
>A rough price tag puts the cost at $17 billion or more. To put that in perspective, cleaning up from the ice storm cost the utilities about $80 million, enough to bury about 100 miles of line. It would take the cost of the damage from 90 similar ice storms to pay for burying half of the state's power lines.
>"It does become more economical to hope for the best and clean up the mess," said Seth Wheeler of New Hampshire Electric Co-op.
01Zaphod t1_j5pfytj wrote
What pisses me off is not losing power during the storm, but losing it two or 3 days after the storm when there are clear skies and no wind. Happens a lot where I live, and it makes no sense.
Put the damn lines underground!
Tullyswimmer t1_j5pvjri wrote
Squirrels. I've lost it a few times due to them. They'll get up on the lines and jump to the transformers and, well...
Also, in the terrain we have putting them underground is expensive as all hell and can only be done 6 months out of the year.
UnfairAd7220 t1_j5q9awa wrote
You think a billion dollars is pocket change?
Acanthaceae_Square t1_j5qnuls wrote
Cumulatively compared to the cost of continuing to repair outages and downed lines from storms, plus associated costs of not having power, year after year? Yes
01Zaphod t1_j5yj5s2 wrote
I’m not going to argue with you there. I’m with you on that.
However, if the infrastructure had been put underground to start with, recurring maintenance costs due to inclement weather, natural disasters and animal/human accidents would be dramatically less than it is now. A bonus to that situation would be better protection against EMP discharge or terrorist attack.
If you think about it, all of our other services are underground - waste (for obvious reasons), water, propane, natural gas, etc. Why not our power grid?
From a historical perspective, I believe the decision was made to utilize the existing telegraph structures to transfer electricity because it was cheaper and faster to install. I’m not a historian, so don’t quote me on that - it’s just conjecture.
[deleted] t1_j5rci2y wrote
Because Boston has buried utilities. I lived in Toronto for 20 years and didn’t lose power until somebody hit a transformer and then put for a week. Same pile bro
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