POCO doing upgrades

[electrofelon]

POCO (national grid) has been investing in their infrastructure a bit here in central NY. Look at some of these Gems: Both are feeding 4800V lines from newer 7.62/13.2 GY lines. Its good to see that low boy leaner go. It was cool to get to see the new tranny up close. They do that a lot here, just drop off transformers and other parts on the ground by the pole and they sit there for several weeks sometimes. The three phase bank is what feeds my house, its about 5 miles away. Those are nice leaners too, although doesnt look as bad as it is because of the angle. Those are 500's just like the single phase one. They have had that new platform up for about 6 months and finally did an outage today and heated them up. My power is so much better now :roll:

 

[Tony S]

POCO (national grid) has been investing in their infrastructure a bit here in central NY. Look at some of these Gems: Both are feeding 4800V lines from newer 7.62/13.2 GY lines. Its good to see that low boy leaner go. It was cool to get to see the new tranny up close. They do that a lot here, just drop off transformers and other parts on the ground by the pole and they sit there for several weeks sometimes. The three phase bank is what feeds my house, its about 5 miles away. Those are nice leaners too, although doesnt look as bad as it is because of the angle. Those are 500's just like the single phase one. They have had that new platform up for about 6 months and finally did an outage today and heated them up. My power is so much better now :roll:

That’s very trusting of them. Around here they would have vanished by the next morning.

 

[kwired]

That’s very trusting of them. Around here they would have vanished by the next morning.

Your common thief runs around with a truck with small crane or something? These aren't something you just run out pick up bare handed and toss into a vehicle. I can see more concern over vandalizing if it is left out there though.

 

[Frank DuVal]

Wow, what low voltage you guys use! 34.5 kV normal around here for distribution. I'm not sure there is any 4600 inner city distribution left.

 

[electrofelon]

Wow, what low voltage you guys use! 34.5 kV normal around here for distribution. I'm not sure there is any 4600 inner city distribution left.

Yeah we are kinda stuck with it. You see quite a few voltage regulators around here. Also lots of these platforms where they have upgraded the first part of the line to 15 kv class.

 

[kwired]

Wow, what low voltage you guys use! 34.5 kV normal around here for distribution. I'm not sure there is any 4600 inner city distribution left.

34.5 would be a transmission voltage around here, though many are at least 69 kV or being upgraded to 69 kV. Local distribution is 12.47/7.2 kV with some small towns at 4160/2400, but many of them are being upgraded to 12.47/7.2 as well.

 

[Tony S]

Your common thief runs around with a truck with small crane or something? These aren't something you just run out pick up bare handed and toss into a vehicle. I can see more concern over vandalizing if it is left out there though.

On a night shift a live 2.5kV OH line went missing. Copper thief’s will do anything!

Just a pity I didn’t reclose the breaker while they were still there.

 

[mbrooke]

Wow, what low voltage you guys use! 34.5 kV normal around here for distribution. I'm not sure there is any 4600 inner city distribution left.

15kv class is the most common by far, but many wish they had gone to 25 or 35kv class distribution instead.

 

[mbrooke]

POCO (national grid) has been investing in their infrastructure a bit here in central NY. Look at some of these Gems: Both are feeding 4800V lines from newer 7.62/13.2 GY lines. Its good to see that low boy leaner go. It was cool to get to see the new tranny up close. They do that a lot here, just drop off transformers and other parts on the ground by the pole and they sit there for several weeks sometimes. The three phase bank is what feeds my house, its about 5 miles away. Those are nice leaners too, although doesnt look as bad as it is because of the angle. Those are 500's just like the single phase one. They have had that new platform up for about 6 months and finally did an outage today and heated them up. My power is so much better now :roll:

Genuine question- do your lights dim less by chance? Around here there was 4.8kv rural line that went to 13.8kv, and the guy I spoke with says he can no longer see "someones refrigerator start on the other side of town" :lol:

 

[electrofelon]

Genuine question- do your lights dim less by chance? Around here there was 4.8kv rural line that went to 13.8kv, and the guy I spoke with says he can no longer see "someones refrigerator start on the other side of town" :lol:

Lol I seem to have very good regulation. There are a few regulators along the way. The first 5th miles of 13.2 from the sub to that platform was done years ago and all they did a few days ago was upgrade the poles and transformers

 

[electrofelon]

15kv class is the most common by far, but many wish they had gone to 25 or 35kv class distribution instead.

I wonder if at the time they first this in the 4800 was "high voltage" , lots of other places were 2400 so they thought they were planning for the future.. but it ended up kinda backfiring because it was high enough that they never had to upgrade it and now it's pretty lossy, and it's high enough that's it's not really worth upgrading? I'm not sure if that's how it went down, just a theory.

 

[mbrooke]

I wonder if at the time they first this in the 4800 was "high voltage" , lots of other places were 2400 so they thought they were planning for the future.. but it ended up kinda backfiring because it was high enough that they never had to upgrade it and now it's pretty lossy, and it's high enough that's it's not really worth upgrading? I'm not sure if that's how it went down, just a theory.

4,800 is some seriously hot stuff, I mean its double 2,400 and quadruple 1,200 volts from when electrification first started. The load which can now be served. And in rural areas 4x the distance for the same load! At least that was how it was viewed back then. Then there was 7,200 and finally 13.8kv which was seen as the great extreme leap in voltage that would finally take care of everything the future could ever dish out. Of course that turned out to be wrong. You now have POCOs converting 25kv to 34.5kv.


It difficult to get rid old stuff- in service life of most POCO equipment is 40-60 years, and if you can get more out of it why not?

By the looks of it the area is leaning toward rural, and if not much load growth took place on that spur then I can see why there was no incentive to upgrade. That and the fact POCOs will gradually push high voltages down the line, meaning that as load increases on any particular low voltage segment the low voltage system shrinks in size as loads are transferred to the higher voltages to prevent capacity from being exceeded.

 

[kwired]

4,800 is some seriously hot stuff, I mean its double 2,400 and quadruple 1,200 volts from when electrification first started. The load which can now be served. And in rural areas 4x the distance for the same load! At least that was how it was viewed back then. Then there was 7,200 and finally 13.8kv which was seen as the great extreme leap in voltage that would finally take care of everything the future could ever dish out. Of course that turned out to be wrong. You now have POCOs converting 25kv to 34.5kv.


It difficult to get rid old stuff- in service life of most POCO equipment is 40-60 years, and if you can get more out of it why not?

By the looks of it the area is leaning toward rural, and if not much load growth took place on that spur then I can see why there was no incentive to upgrade. That and the fact POCOs will gradually push high voltages down the line, meaning that as load increases on any particular low voltage segment the low voltage system shrinks in size as loads are transferred to the higher voltages to prevent capacity from being exceeded.

A part of reason some of the small towns that had 4.16/2.4 distribution get converted to 12.5/7.2 isn't so much because of town load, outside of that one customer with a large demand, but also makes it easier to transfer to the rural system that is already 12.5/7.2 in an emergency type situation.

 

[mbrooke]

I wonder if at the time they first this in the 4800 was "high voltage" , lots of other places were 2400 so they thought they were planning for the future.. but it ended up kinda backfiring because it was high enough that they never had to upgrade it and now it's pretty lossy, and it's high enough that's it's not really worth upgrading? I'm not sure if that's how it went down, just a theory.

I'd say thats the exact issue with 13.2kv. 13.2kv was seen as planning for the future and then some, only to have it back fire such that it did the job economically just long enough to amass a very large infrastructure consisting of it. So large that even though 34.5kv is optimal today, 13.2kv has to be used in new builds simply because its such a common standard.


.............................


And its not just distribution. At one point 220kv was seen as the ultimate backbone for a Nation's transmission system surpassing and linking together 40, 50, 60, 80, 100kv, 138kv power plants and load centers. 220kv ran all over the US and Europe as the major super highway arteries. After WWII 400kv took that spot in Europe and 345kv in the US. Then 500kv started to fulfill that role. And the last 20 years 765kv has taken the backbone roll:

https://www.pjm.com/-/media/committ...0710-aep-interstate-project-why-765kv-ac.ashx


Today you have 1,200kv lines popping up all over the world with concepts being proposed in the USA.


https://www.tdworld.com/substations/abb-develop-1200-kv-uhv-circuit-breaker



Here is a good comparison of why higher voltages are becoming so economical:

 

[mbrooke]

A part of reason some of the small towns that had 4.16/2.4 distribution get converted to 12.5/7.2 isn't so much because of town load, outside of that one customer with a large demand, but also makes it easier to transfer to the rural system that is already 12.5/7.2 in an emergency type situation.

That can certainly motivate.