It’s A Question Of Power
We’ve all seen our legislators attempting to appear concerned by calling in BGE to explain how it reacted to our last big storm and all the outages we all suffered through. Maybe if the Public Service Commission turned down BGE for passing along the cost of power restoration from our big storms, there would be a financial incentive to bury wires. Fewer wires to come down would mean fewer outages.
BGE claims the cost of burying wires is $3 million per mile. There’s got to be a better way to deal with the problem of constant and prolonged storm outages, until a new Edison can invent a better way to distribute electricity. Smart meters: Really? BGE has a plan, the cost of which will be passed on to customers to install digital meters that can be read remotely. What if there’s no power to the meter? Hello? What’s smart about staffing and paying for tree cutting that amounts to nothing when our newest storm “Derecho” is added to our annual hurricane visits? What’s smart about any of this?
Communication and electricity via poles and wires has been around since about 1840. How far have we come in every other aspect of technology? We can bury fiber optic cable for phone and internet all over the place, but not power. All our new “cyber” age technology will not work without a reliable power source.
Where did the Trillions in “stimulus” funding go? Did we really see much improvement to outdated roads and bridges? We can get to those when we change over to more manufacturing to create more jobs. What about a national program to update the power grid and make it safe- really safe. Talk about new jobs!
Oh, and let’s not forget to add up the cost of the lost business, work time and other economic loss, including taxes to our beloved State from all this loss activity. Well, I guess there’s always higher sales taxes from customers having to re-stock refrigerators at least once and from all that extra diesel fuel for generators.
Is this all solvable and even affordable? I’m not smart enough to know how to fix each element, but something tells me, yes!
Brian
3:28 pm on Monday, August 27, 2012
Love it Jay ...just love it.
MAW
6:24 am on Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Dont cry about the problems Jay. Come up with answers.
Also answer this question. Who is going to pay for the connection to each home or business that is fed overhead? My power works fine as it does now. I dont want to be forced to pay for something that doesnt need to be fixed. I, and most people around cant afford that.
What about the liability of doing installation. And you're complaining about BGE installing smart meters? Most everything would have to be replaced from the main panel in the house, out to the meter, then out to the street. Good lord I would hate to insure the power companies when they are doing this.
$3 million dollars a mile? I believe it.
John
9:31 am on Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Something has to come along that renders the utility companies obsolete. It would be something that would completely power your home without any external sources of energy needed.
Think along the lines of solar panels. Now, I'm not saying they're the answer but it's an example of a step towards self sufficiency.
I'm not a big fan of donning the tin foil hat, but imagine being scientist and coming up with a work-able model for people to power their own homes, rending all utility companies including companies that buy power obsolete. Think that scientist is gonna get funding?
Jeff Andrade
12:34 pm on Tuesday, August 28, 2012
I think Jay's got a point in that as areas become increasingly urbanized it makes sense to put power lines underground to better deal with the weather-related power outages. In fact, the US lags behind most industrialized countries in underground power lines and overhead transmission and distribution lines are unsightly to many. But as with that old adage about the grass being greener on the other side, they are not without down sides besides cost issues. They can't deal with overloads and demand surge as well, they have more limited capacity, and if there is a failure, it generally takes longer to locate and fix it. And just like a dummy driver can take out a utility pole, a dummy digging with a Bobcat where they aren't supposed to can take out power for miles around. I'm also puzzled at how overhead and underground lines are integrated together around here. We have all underground distribution lines within Piney Orchard, but I have experienced more frequent and longer power outages here than in any other place where I have ever lived. I think the best solution for many is to have a safe, backup generator solution that can keep the basic home systems working in the event of an extended loss of power. I'd rather see the politicians and utilities focused on trying to make this option more affordable than costly smart meters and new mandates on utilities.
MAW
12:04 pm on Wednesday, August 29, 2012
BGE has been burying lines underground in new developments since the late 70's or early 80's. Maybe the developers (like Jay) could pay to have the feeders buried to their new developments from the substations.....
Dave
6:25 pm on Friday, August 31, 2012
Jeff, the problem with the generator solution is this: It would be a greater social good if all the generator money went instead toward improving the reliability of the existing infrastructure (tree trimming, line burial where appropriate).
Instead, we are going to have a world where some folks can bail themselves out of the poor infrastructure while more and more folks suffer without electricity from time to time.
Jeff Andrade
7:52 pm on Friday, August 31, 2012
Dave, I'm not sure that utiliies ever going to be eliminate weather-related outages, which are the main problem around here. I agree that having backup generators will not be feasible for everyone. But assuming as a typical homeowner, I can get a basic generator of 5-6Kw, and the electrical work and transfer switch to run my furnace, fridge, sump pump, microwave and some lighting for about $5,000. Amortize that over 10 years and it's around $40/month, and less if you do it over 15 years. A more automated and robust backup system that can run almost everything in the entire house off natural gas, might be up to 3x that. But if you build that cost into the price of the house, you could amortize that over 30 years, and still be at about $40/month or less. So to me, no matter what they do with buried lines and trimming, I don't think that any utility company could guarantee me uninterrupted power for another $40/month or less. (PS I do not sell, install or manufacture generators :-))
Dave
10:33 pm on Friday, August 31, 2012
Jeff,
Such a system would also have the advantage of providing an arbitrage opportunity in the case that electricity prices grow substantially faster than natural gas prices.
Jeff Andrade
11:28 pm on Friday, August 31, 2012
Sorry Dave I just can't get there with the numbers. Think this is one of those instances where I think it's more economical to most consumers to go with self-sufficiency over collective action.
Dave
11:27 am on Saturday, September 1, 2012
Hmm. 1 therm = 29.3 kWh. BGE price for gas is $0.60 per therm.
The Honda EU2000i (a smaller generator) will run for 4 hours at 1600 watt load with a fuel tank capacity of 1.1 gal. Gas has a potential chemical energy of roughly 33.4 kWh/gal, so there's 36.7 kWh of energy in the tank, but it only yields 1.6*4 = 6.4 kWh of electricity. Thus a fair estimate of the efficiency of the Honda eu2000i is 6.4/36.7 = 17.4% efficient.
Thus, each therm of natural gas into the eu2000i will deliver 29.3 kWh*0.17 = 5.1 kWh. Thus $0.6 per therm will give you $0.6/5.1 = $0.118 per kWh.
So it isn't economical to run your natural gas generator to power your house today, but it's not far off. BGE charges around 9.8 cents per kWh, so you are only losing 2 cents per kWh.
John
2:05 pm on Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Why change the perfect business model. While there's a choice in energy suppliers there is no choice for BG&E to deliver the power and charge their fixed fees.
If people are without power then they're without power. There is and can never be any competing company to deliver it. And if it costs too much to restore power then they simply raise the fees.
Why change. I also believe there are caps in place on how much BG&E can make regarding profit since they're a public utility, so there's no real incentive.
Jeff Andrade
4:13 pm on Tuesday, August 28, 2012
I'm not sure how difference the business model makes. BGE's status as a "natural monopoly" -- just like pretty much everywhere else in the country -- does not seem to affect the reliability of our electrical supply. Private, for-profit utilities heavily regulated by government; utilities owned by local government, or cooperatively owned utilities like those in rural areas, don't seem to make much difference. Energy supplier choice gives some competition on the commodity part of our home energy, but the cost savings and other benefits to consumers are somewhat nominal. And the one public utility where we saw some initial benefits from deregulation and breaking up monopolies - telecommunications - in turn resulted in merger pressure to buy out competitors rather than compete with them and that has created companies that are now bigger than ever. So as Jay points out, I too am not smart enough to know how to fix all this, but there has got to be better solutions on the engineering side to ensure reliable electricity distribution that can (pardon the pun) weather any storm.
...
Patrick H.
11:41 pm on Friday, August 31, 2012
I agree with Jeff on the issue of generators. When we do purchase a home we will put a generator in. It is my understanding that I can have a complete system installed that would run the entire house on either propane or gas and that the system is around $7-8,000. If I include it in the purchase of the house I can also include it as part of my mortgage. I would love to see the cost of solar panels come down but I think the generator is the way to go.
As far as power lines are concerned I believe that all lines should be underground so as to save more trees and the environment. Power lines are just plain ugly.
Patrick Arndt
8:46 am on Friday, August 31, 2012
Here is a PDF on underground lines
http://psc.wi.gov/thelibrary/publications/electric/electric11.pdf
It is less work to splice and repair overhead lines, look at the work it takes to install underground lines in existing developments.
Traci M. Radice
9:59 pm on Monday, October 1, 2012
Smart meters cause fires, too.