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Discussion in 'Off-Topic Forum' started by Happy Camper, Sep 29, 2020.

  1. Happy Camper

    Happy Camper DI Senior Member Restricted Account Infamous Showcase Reviewer

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    They are at it again. Remember that all day brown out we had 2 months ago?

    Doing it again this Sunday, same times. I don't think I have ever seen a more incompetent bunch of people trying to run a National System.

    Now for the conspiracy theorists, maybe they are in tandem with the Resort Owners to increase business due to no tourism. Last time, they resorts were full.

    They have been replacing poles for more than a decade, how many poles could they possibly have?
     
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  2. Dutchie

    Dutchie DI Senior Member Showcase Reviewer Veteran Army

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    The problem isn't them poles, or any other type of maintenance, the problem is that there's no redundancy in their grid.
    The reason you don't see these regular blackouts in most other countries is not that there's no maintenance needed there (although having all non - high voltage grid lines underground obviously diminishes the need for maintenance to a great extent), but rather that there's redundant circuits. If one section of the grid needs to be shut down, then the redundant circuit takes over for all other areas, so almost no customers will be affected.
     
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  3. Notmyrealname

    Notmyrealname DI Forum Luminary Highly Rated Poster Showcase Reviewer

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    How does one put spaghetti underground? :smile:
     
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  4. cabb

    cabb DI Forum Patron Highly Rated Poster ✤Forum Sponsor✤

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    Very carefully. :smile:
     
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  5. Rye83

    Rye83 with pastrami Admin Secured Account Highly Rated Poster SC Connoisseur Veteran Army

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    I imagine there are a LOT of poles. 10's, maybe 100's, of thousands of them. They only started mass producing/ordering metal ones maybe 5-8 years ago...but the majority of the smaller wooden ones are more than likely on the NORECO side of the house. I have no idea how long it takes to change out a pole but I would guess no less than an hour or two each. Multiply that by 10k poles (on the lower side in my estimate) and you have a sh*t ton of man hours. If we are talking the industrial main towers I would think each one would be measured in days instead of hours.

    With all that being said the electrical infrastructure here has improved drastically in the 10 years I have been here. If you are complaining about the frequency of brownouts either your memory is failing or you haven't been here long enough to remember how bad it used to be.
     
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  6. danbandanna

    danbandanna DI Forum Patron Highly Rated Poster Showcase Reviewer Veteran Marines

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    sigh .... 2 12 hour brownouts in 30 days or so is a bit excessive... been here 4+ years and this is the first time this has happened to me.....
     
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  7. DavyL200

    DavyL200 DI Forum Luminary ★ Global Mod ★ ★ Moderator ★ Highly Rated Poster Showcase Reviewer

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    Nearly all main lines and sub lines in the uk are above ground but we dont have the mass of spagetti along them. There are contractors who are trained to cut trees when needed with the lines live and different crews who work on the live lines.
    We are still on another 3 hr brown out here now due the i think the fuse wires blowing on the public transformers,its happened 3 times in the last few weeks. And every day there are several 10 to 20min outages during night and day.
    Ive seen no improvement at all over the last 10 yrs in this area!
     
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  8. Rye83

    Rye83 with pastrami Admin Secured Account Highly Rated Poster SC Connoisseur Veteran Army

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    We used to have those many times per week, sometimes many days in a row, all completely unannounced. We went without power for a solid 2 weeks after Yolanda and water for nearly 2 months (the water pressure in Valencia still hasn't recovered to pre-Yolanda levels to this day).
    It seems to be seasonal. Heavy rain and wind have always knocked out the power pretty predictably. If you haven't been experiencing this over the years you have been lucky. There are a lot of failure points in the dilapidated infrastructure here. One only needs to look up to understand. At any given location the lines have at least a dozen ways for everything to come crashing down.
     
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  9. danbandanna

    danbandanna DI Forum Patron Highly Rated Poster Showcase Reviewer Veteran Marines

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    LOL is this like "son when I went to school it was uphill both ways" seriously glad I was not here then.. :smile:
     
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  10. djfinn6230

    djfinn6230 DI Senior Member

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    I was at Polaris today and I saw that they are selling, under Polaris’ brand name, 335 watt solar panels for 7k each. They advertise how the Palwa hotel in Duma has 100 of them installed for what they rate as a 25Kw power source (about double what a comfortable expat house would need). That hotel just connects to the grid selling unused power back to NORECO II and getting free power while the sun is shining.

    What I am thinking is, the power infrastructure here is beset with problems, not due to a shortage of energy but a continuously failing distribution system. The Polaris product does not try to sell you a generation system meant to replace the utility but to save money. Maybe they have a financial case, maybe not.

    I will say that this is a place where the infrastructure may never be reliable like the countries you mention. It may turn out that people here will eventually bypass the whole infrastructure with self-power generation, probably using solar.

    Of course this idea is very old, going back to the 1970’s Arab oil embargoes. But today things are changing; solar panels are now reasonably efficient and reliable (Polaris has a 25 year warranty...though we depend on them existing that long). Inverter tech is more efficient and low cost. And today we have li-ion batteries whose costs are way down now due to electric cars. Polaris does not sell the batteries, just the panels and inverters.

    Li-ion batteries are smaller than the old lead acid but still need lot’s of room in a separate structure for storage. That is probably what holds us back from being completely self-generating. The Polaris display still shows us relying on the grid, which by the way surprised me; are we sure that NOTECO II will allow everyone to connect to their utility and agree to buy back our power? At what price?

    I understand that Tesla motors has a much better battery tech now. A different tech than li-ion. Elon Musk is a transformative figure and he releases his technology very quickly.

    I have to wonder if the newer modern, cheaper solar tech will be the ultimate answer to power distribution problems here, simply bypassing that old grid in the same way that cellular technology bypassed the landline phones, allowing society to move in progress. My gut feeling is that the power grid will never get up to U.K., US, S. Korea, China and Taiwan reliability. Too expensive now because it has been ignored for so long. The people as a whole may simply turn to self-generation and bid the utility good-bye.


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