Transmission and distribution loss

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peter d

Senior Member
Location
New England
I read an interesting statistic in a National Geographic article a while back that I found interesting. It said that for every watt of power delivered, two are lost in supplying it. It didn't break down the loss beyond that, nor did it explain how it arrived at that figure.

That immediately struck me as being very wasteful and inefficient, so I questioned the accuracy of the statistic. Yet, as I thought about it I have no reason to doubt it as I do know between generation and transmission there is tremendous loss, particularly on the generation side. I just didn't realize it could be that high.

Thoughts?
 

K8MHZ

Senior Member
Location
Michigan. It's a beautiful peninsula, I've looked
Occupation
Electrician
I read a similar article somewhere, Reader's Digest, perhaps.

In a nutshell, the article claimed that due to line and other forms of losses, only about 1 watt out of 3 produced made it to it's intended destination with 1 watt being lost in transmission lines.
 

broadgage

Senior Member
Location
London, England
I very much doubt that the loses are anything like that much.
Here in the UK 10% loss in transmision is a widely accepted figure, probably more in the USA on account of the greater distances, but I doubt that it would be much more.

If the losses were that bad, it would be worth useing local diesel or gas turbine plant to produce power, rather than pay for losses of two thirds in transmision. Almost no one does (except for standby purposes, or in remote locations)

What they may be refering to, is the total losses in GENERATION, transmision and distribution, these could well be about two thirds.
A coal fired steam turbine power plant, or a gas turbine power plant, or diesel generation are only about 30/40 % efficient.
This is unavoidable due to the laws of thermodynamics.
The inherent inefficiency of any heat engine, added to the losses in transmision and distribution could well be two units out of three lost, with only one reaching the end user.
 
Broadgage, you beat me to it. Good work.


I really question whether our transmission and distribution system results in 33 percent efficiency.


However, if you take into account the amount of raw energy contained in your energy source, and your THERMAL EFFICIENCY and losses behind that, then I would agree that statistic is probably accurate.


Coal, for instance, probably peaks around 40 percent thermal efficiency.
 

peter d

Senior Member
Location
New England
What they may be refering to, is the total losses in GENERATION, transmision and distribution, these could well be about two thirds.
A coal fired steam turbine power plant, or a gas turbine power plant, or diesel generation are only about 30/40 % efficient.
This is unavoidable due to the laws of thermodynamics.
The inherent inefficiency of any heat engine, added to the losses in transmision and distribution could well be two units out of three lost, with only one reaching the end user.

That makes sense to me and seems most probable. I didn't think the 2/3 accounted for transmission losses alone.
 

dereckbc

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Plano, TX
Well what they quote is a bit of a half truth without going into detail and trying to shock the public for political purposes.

What they are referring to is the Well to the Utilization point taking all the losses combined. For example a modern coal fired power plant is in the neighborhood of 40% efficient converting the heat energy in the coal to electricity. That is just simply the Second Law of Thermal Dynamics coming into play as no system is 100% efficient aka unity gain.

With that said here in the USA Transmission and Distribution losses are on the order of 8 to 12 % from plant to light bulb so to speak. This in theory could be cut in half or more but our political system will not allow it. It would require building micro generating plants like a small nuclear plants strategically located in a geographical area like under the streets in you down town districts and located under you homes in the housing districts and commercial districts. Think of it like cellular telephone, a lot of small power transmitters located over a large region.

Instead what we do now is build the plants far and away from the point of use and have to ship it in over long distances. You would have to completely rebuild the whole infrastructure and political climate, that is not going to happen.
 
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