Utility Distribution Circuit Distance

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bwat

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What's the longest utility distribution circuit that anyone on this forum has seen? Circuit distance from sub. Can assume 15, 25, or 35kV (or something else if you'd like).

This was a side topic on a current project. I don't recall many (any?) over 20 miles from my brief employment at a POCO nearly two decades ago, but that could have just been what I was exposed to and/or my memory being incorrect.

I'm aware that it very much varies based on location, geography, loading, voltage, etc, but wanted some data points.
 
I once worked for a rural electric cooperative in Oklahoma. I don't remember the exact length, but I'm thinking our longest was less than 20 miles. If you get out in rural Texas where everything is bigger, I would expect them to be longer.
 
Our biggest wires coming out of some of the substations were 477 kcmil ACSR. It didn't make a lot of sense, really. It was only the ones that had been built around 1981 or '82, over a quarter-century before I worked there. I figure they must have had someone in leadership at that time pushing for all of the main feeders out of substations to be 477. But it would have made more sense to reserve it for the areas that were growing with new neighborhoods. Those would have been predictable even 30 years ahead of time. But instead, we ended up with 2 or 3 miles of 477 right out of the substation on one of our most rural substations where the population shrank and there never was much additional load, and the feeders only ran at about 20 amps.
 
Mr. Serious said:
I once worked for a rural electric cooperative in Oklahoma. I don't remember the exact length, but I'm thinking our longest was less than 20 miles. If you get out in rural Texas where everything is bigger, I would expect them to be longer.
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Yes

They are

The Wichita Lineman
 
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