Wasn’t the point that one company manages the grid? I thought the common European model for electricity privatisation was still one company running the grid but several companies selling electricity that passes through the grid. For example, I get two electricity bills in Sweden, one for the connection to the grid and one for the KW/h usage. They are paid to different companies.
Well, yes and no, it’s complicated. When I changed (Germany) from the communal provider to a private company, I still got my bill from one, the new, company, but the new company pays a usage fee to the city company that still manages the meter and the power lines inside the city.
I only know this because the private companies stress this during a change that their fee is a bit higher because of this, they can’t give special prices as the city power company can.
But on the bill, it just shows “Basic fee” and “kWh of consumption”.
Which company maintains and pays for the cross-country cables, I don’t off hand know.
In Norway, we also get two bills, one from the power provider and one from the grid provider. However, grid cost here isn’t a fixed price, we pay for grid access per kWh consumed (and maybe a fixed fee on top, I haven’t looked closely at those bills lately). You may get only one bill, though, if you choose your grid provider to also deliver the power.
Nowhere ain’t no country I ever heard of. Do they speak English in Nowhere?
A feature of having buried all kinds of utility pipelines and cables in Britain is that no sooner has a road been resurfaced it seems neccessary for various companies to come and dig holes in it. However while I was staying in Fuenguerola, Spain, most of which has only been built since the sixties for the tourist trade, I was impressed to see that all the lines and cables were installed together in large yellow pipes running under the street. While I was there they were running a rolling programme to replace everything at the same time. While this meant digging up whole streets and closing them for months they only had to do this once every few decades.
A similar thing happened in Germany after re-unification not with power lines, but with fiber optic cable for better internet and telephone: in most cities, telephone lines had been laid down in the 60s, but the copper cables weren’t up to modern telephone traffic, let alone internet. So the company knew they had to invest bucks to modernize, but didn’t want to shut down streets for months to replace everything.
Several companies offered small robot diggers, that would dig a small tunnel, dragging the new cable behind them. If necessary, digging along the old cable, they could also reel in the copper cable for recycling.
Nowhegian.
I thought it was Utopian.
contact electricians to get estimates for retrofits. every situation is unique for the time and materials it would take.
a small transfer switch subpanel (for essential loads) is able to be put into new construction for a couple hundred dollars (USA). quality essential load generators might be $500(USA) and above, depending on size you might not get to have everything running at the same time (e.g. the refrigerator and freezer might have to alternate which gets power, which is OK for the food).
whole house systems are many thousands dollars(USA) in cost.
if you are on city water (pressure is from tower storage and they have emergency power) then you can get standby water powered sump pumps for when your electricity goes out. if you are on your own well then you need backup electricity for your sump pump. there are battery units which will give you a few hours and you might be able to add additional batteries for a longer use time. for unattended backup use these battery units might be best because then with a manually operated generator transfer switch and a generator that you start on demand you would still have sump pump use when you aren’t there or awake.
You can’t just check in from a country like Norway, if people are made aware Norway exists they might not be able to use their population density argument for why the US grid is substandard.
Norway is one of Europe’s lowest investors in their grid per kilowatt. They invest twice what the US invests. Their population density half that of the US. They have a higher percentage of underground grid and are increasing their percentage of underground grid far faster than the US.
Someone had mentioned Europe has an advantage with their 240 grid. I think there are pro’s and cons to each but from a reliability standpoint it gives no excuse the US is so far behind. The most reliable grid in the world has been the Japan’s. Japan has 2 separate 100volt grids, both are more reliable then any region in the US. With the earthquake and subsequent tsunami however they’ve had some serious issues with the northern grid.
In the US power outages caused by unreliable grid costs us 80 to 180 billion in productivity annually. According to the Department of Energy the needed investment in our grid is 82 billion. That 82 million is a one time investment doable over a number of years. That would reduce productivity loss by 49 billion a year. It would also save 29 billion a year in power loss due to inefficiency. A side effect would be reduced emissions by at least 12 percent. It makes all the sense in the world to make that investment yet we can’t get it done politically.
According to a documentary I saw, Norway seems to spend a huge budget on repairing power lines that get mysteriously damaged. They’re a special case.
Not at all. In any European country. Maybe in some obscure places in the previous Soviet bloc countries… maybe… but in general, no.
Was that any good? Every time I see the title I assume it’s about a moderator on an internet message board.
I personally dislike “POV shakycam” films like Blair Witch, but it was fun enough to mostly overcome that.
I guess that having an an unclear idea of something like that was my motivation for asking GusNSpot for a cite for the claim that underground power lines are so much more expensive in the US than in Europe. And, by the way, I’m still waiting for that cite…
Most of us Nowherians do, albeit with varying degrees of proficiency
Now, you’ll have to make the distinction between real power lines (which we bury underground) and the alleged power lines which are still laid overhead. It’s hard to see from the gross numbers, but if you examine the maintenance cost accounts, you can spot the difference.
Well of course it can’t be done: spending money, even as an investment that saves money, is contrary to the Republican/ Tea party mantra of “Saving/ no spending” (except for wars, banks, “bacon” and personal friends).
In addition, during this recession, a big infrastructure project would provide jobs to unemployed people, which would make them happy, so it’s against the Christian Right principle of suffering being your own fault.
Also, reducing emissions means it’s hippie and global warming secular horror agenda, so no matter the other benefits, it’s a bad idea.
Don’t forget that the Congress has only one mission: Make sure that Obama isn’t re-elected.
Helping the people, or improving the country is not on the list. Maybe next time, if you’re lucky.
/sarcasm
[moderator note]
Yes, I get that you were being sarcastic. Did you get that you’re in GQ?
Political potshots are not allowed in this forum.
[/moderator note]
I think this thread may be giving a misleading impression, by failing to distinguish between distribution networks and transmission networks.
It is very, very unusual anywhere in the world for high-voltage transmission lines to be run underground. The exceptions are cases like undersea interconnectors and some short-distance links in urban areas.
Apart from these exceptions, transmission lines are run overhead on pylons in Europe, just as they are in the USA.
The transmission system operator in your area is Transpower, which was taken over by Tennet last year. While you have a choice of suppliers who compete for your business, the TSO is a monopoly, as it is everywhere. (The wires business is a “natural monopoly”.)