Electric outages - Huntsville utilities (Madison: power lines, appliances, new home)

[johnsonkk]

An increasing number of electrical outages are occurring in Huntsville. Their Facebook page is consumed with their announcement of the lasted outage. https://www.facebook.com/Huntsville....__xts__=68.ARB...

Often their update said it was a faulty piece of equipment, cabinet or door in substation, but the bigger issue is frequency of these announcements. They blend their Facebook page with feel good news stories but the outages are occurring more often. But many of the outages are newer developments too. Favorite reason is a car hit a utility pole and that somehow knocked out power to a “thousand homes”

Are these frequent electrical outages a setup for higher rates?

[AU HSV]

Maybe but they announce it way ahead of time
https://www.hsvutil.org/outagemap/

[johnsonkk]

Originally Posted by AU HSV

Maybe but they announce it way ahead of time
https://www.hsvutil.org/outagemap/

The Huntsville utilities are not announcing substation damages in advance. New platforms for subdivisions maybe but the self-reported damages to the grid in Huntsville are what is being reported. Their use of old implies upgrades are necessary. A recent outage was reported, by HSV utilities, to have been a door that shorted out a substation. It took “hours” to identify this and why are there not sensors or at least a faster response system or prevention maybe?

These aren’t rolling brownouts or announced outages.

[AU HSV]

Originally Posted by johnsonkk

The Huntsville utilities are not announcing substation damages in advance. New platforms for subdivisions maybe but the self-reported damages to the grid in Huntsville are what is being reported. Their use of old implies upgrades are necessary. A recent outage was reported, by HSV utilities, to have been a door that shorted out a substation. It took “hours” to identify this and why are there not sensors or at least a faster response system or prevention maybe?

These aren’t rolling brownouts or announced outages.

I meant rate hikes, relax go outside and enjoy. Huntsville Utilities does an excellent job not everything is a conspiracy.

[dijkstra]

Older equipment goes bad at some point. Transformers fail all the time. Houses are being built faster than they can upgrade the grid to support them resulting in older equipment being stressed to the max resulting in failures. It happens. Rate hikes are unfortunately going to happen. New equipment cost more, trucks cost an absurdly amount more and are inferior to the ones they are replacing and labor goes up. It is what it is as they say.



I personally think Huntsville Utilities does an outstanding job. It is very rare for my electricity to be out. Even when we have bad storms, they respond quickly and efficiently and get us going again.

[harry chickpea]

It seems obvious to me that the OP knows zip about electric distribution systems. Add speculation to a lack of knowledge and you get scattershot that is mostly nonsense.

If a car takes out a pole with a main line, or a tree falls on same, then many downstream customers are going to be affected. That has nothing to do with the price of tea in China or the rate structure of a utility.

The larger issue - by far - is the rapid growth in the area, and new industries coming online that will use huge amounts of power. Imagine your kitchen having the standard circuit for a refrigerator, one for a stove, one for a microwave, and one for the small appliances that clutter the counter. Now add a dozen air fryers, a deep fat fryer, a wine cooler, an ice cube maker, two brand new ovens, four new rangetops, and an industrial size mixer - all vying for power from the small appliance circuit.

To fix your kitchen, not only do multiple new circuits have to be added, but that old 100 amp entrance has to be upgraded to an 800 amp one, the transformer on the pole upgraded, and new cable run. Now take a small city like Huntsville, and quadruple the demand for power in a short period of time. Spit happens.

[johnsonkk]

Originally Posted by harry chickpea

It seems obvious to me that the OP knows zip about electric distribution systems. Add speculation to a lack of knowledge and you get scattershot that is mostly nonsense.

If a car takes out a pole with a main line, or a tree falls on same, then many downstream customers are going to be affected. That has nothing to do with the price of tea in China or the rate structure of a utility.

The larger issue - by far - is the rapid growth in the area, and new industries coming online that will use huge amounts of power. Imagine your kitchen having the standard circuit for a refrigerator, one for a stove, one for a microwave, and one for the small appliances that clutter the counter. Now add a dozen air fryers, a deep fat fryer, a wine cooler, an ice cube maker, two brand new ovens, four new rangetops, and an industrial size mixer - all vying for power from the small appliance circuit.

To fix your kitchen, not only do multiple new circuits have to be added, but that old 100 amp entrance has to be upgraded to an 800 amp one, the transformer on the pole upgraded, and new cable run. Now take a small city like Huntsville, and quadruple the demand for power in a short period of time. Spit happens.

Appreciate the insult. My point was that a single pole crash doesn’t take out the NE corner of the county. That’s what HSV has reported. They under report the number of those without power.

No houses are getting 800 amp service unless you’re one of the 1%ers. Blaming new construction in areas that are aren’t seeing the new construction. The areas most recently listed on HSV utilities’ Facebook page, that were linked earlier, aren’t seeing new construction. See how that works. Replies without personal attacks.

[dijkstra]

Originally Posted by johnsonkk

Appreciate the insult. My point was that a single pole crash doesn’t take out the NE corner of the county. That’s what HSV has reported. They under report the number of those without power.

No houses are getting 800 amp service unless you’re one of the 1%ers. Blaming new construction in areas that are aren’t seeing the new construction. The areas most recently listed on HSV utilities’ Facebook page, that were linked earlier, aren’t seeing new construction. See how that works. Replies without personal attacks.

Well actually yes, a single pole crash can take out an entire circuit sector. The car hits the pole, the lines fall and dead short. The short causing a sudden surge and what typically would happen is the breaker for that circuit branch will trip but the surge can cause a transformer to blow or maybe the main breaker at the sub-station to trip. That can cause an entire area to have a service interruption. It happens. Hell sometimes something as simple as a squirrel getting into the substation can cause a short and take out an entire sector.



As for the 800 amp service, you are right. Not a lot of homes have 800 amp but there are quite a bit of them that have 400 amp and we use every single slot in the breaker box. That is really irrelevant to the main issue though. It is the growth with so many new homes being added to the grid daily. You say you are talking about areas without new homes but I don't know that there are very many residential areas in the Madison county/Huntsville Utilities service area that aren't seeing explosive growth.

[harry chickpea]

Originally Posted by johnsonkk

Appreciate the insult. My point was that a single pole crash doesn’t take out the NE corner of the county. That’s what HSV has reported. They under report the number of those without power.

No houses are getting 800 amp service unless you’re one of the 1%ers. Blaming new construction in areas that are aren’t seeing the new construction. The areas most recently listed on HSV utilities’ Facebook page, that were linked earlier, aren’t seeing new construction. See how that works. Replies without personal attacks.

As dijkstra pointed out, a single pole CAN affect power to a large area. Not all power lines on a pole are designated for a single neighborhood. When you see taller poles with seriously large insulators on the wires, those are most likely a higher voltage distribution circuit. Many of those are in the same right of way as main roads. Reporting is, IIRC, by the number of billable customers, so if I have power on both sides of the road to two or more buildings (as I do), I would get reported as one customer.

Pointing out that you have a lack of knowledge and speculate is not an insult. Using an extreme example of increased power usage is simply to make a point, showing how power draw can increase, as appliances are added - even without new construction.

The push for LED lighting and efficient air conditioners is real, and based in large part on the need to not overload existing electric infrastructure as new toys are added to homes. Even with that, if you go outside some early evening on the hottest days, you may hear the larger power lines singing from the loads that can near the capacity of the wire. If you look at some transformer cans serving old small industries you may notice rust - caused by the cans overheating and damaging the paint protecting it, when more power hungry equipment is added as the businesses grow. Rolling blackouts are not something happening here now, but they do happen in many cities.

[AU HSV]

Originally Posted by johnsonkk

Appreciate the insult. My point was that a single pole crash doesn’t take out the NE corner of the county. That’s what HSV has reported. They under report the number of those without power.

No houses are getting 800 amp service unless you’re one of the 1%ers. Blaming new construction in areas that are aren’t seeing the new construction. The areas most recently listed on HSV utilities’ Facebook page, that were linked earlier, aren’t seeing new construction. See how that works. Replies without personal attacks.

You can check their power outage map and get a fair accurate number of households without power. Good grief as if there isn’t enough bs to worry about. Go check your water usage and cut in half if u want to help. Go call TVA maybe they can help you verify fabricate this conspiracy