Subj : Tiers
To   : Stewart Honsberger
From : Jack Yates
Date : Thu Aug 02 2001 11:37 am

 RC>> and your claim is absurd unless you can show that 100% of your
 RC>> power grid is buried.

 SH> My power grid is, yes.

Your definition of a power grid would be called a "branch system" or some
other subordinate term by the power people.  While the lines in your
neighbo(u)rhood may be buried, the lines that feed them are not.  These lines,
and the "dozens of power grids" that you referred to later in this message are
Oshawa's power grid.  I think you'll find that if the right overhead lines go
down, your neighbo(u)rhood will go dark.

A power grid starts at, in the very least case, the transformer yard or
substation where power is received from the generating station and the voltage
reduced for transmission to a city or other locality, then fed through
high-voltage lines to other, smaller transformer banks where the voltage is
again reduced, then to branch systems such as your area at somewhere near
2200-4100 volts.  This is reduced again by transformers which are found in the
large metal boxes on concrete pads at the entrance to, and throughout the
subdivision, as it is the usual practice to feed no more than three homes per
transformer.  The neat thing about this is that a while a wayward drunk can
run into a transformer box with his Chevrolet and *guarantee* a power outage,
they don't need a bucket truck to fix it and there aren't any lines lying in
the road to worry about.  The lines that feed the substation, and the lines
that eminate from it cannot be buried as there is too high a risk of breaching
the insulation and the power going to ground at such high voltage.  These
lines, some as high as 137KV, IIRC, must be run overhead.

A power grid, by definition, should also include one or more generating
stations.

Of all the power outages that we've had, there have been tow causes; someone
running into a pole, and the failure, for one reason or another, of one or more
transfornmers at the Louvale substation, about ten miles away.  The substaton
has been the most prevalent cause due to lightning strikes and subsequent
transformer explosions; IOW, it wouldn't matter if all the distributions
lines in the county were buried, we'd still have power outages.  So would you.


In summary, your assesment that your "power grid is underground" is based on a
limited knowledge of the subject.


 SH> Yes, but big surprise, Oshawa also has dozens of power grids. We live
 SH> in a new(er) part of the city where the grid is modern, as are the
 SH> phone lines. In fact, our fibre optic network is being re-tooled and
 SH> expanded as we speak. :>

The electric distribution system in Oshawa is one power grid unless fed by more
than one generating station with no interconnection among them.




--- McGuffey's Reader                                 GoldED UNREG
 * Origin:    (1:3613/1275.1)

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