California power grid, wildfires 17

[JayMaechtlen]

So, among our various issues in California, we have an aging electric grid.
It may be more an economic /political issue than engineering?

https://www.wsj.com/articles/pg-e-k...park-wildfires-and-didnt-fix-them-11562768885

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/business/energy-environment/pge-camp-fire.html

Even in spite of massive intentional blackouts, it seems that one or more of our recent/current fires were caused by power lines.

Of course, people don't like wide cleared areas along power lines, but maybe that would be a big starting point.

Thoughts?



Jay Maechtlen

http://www.laserpubs.com/techcomm

 

[hokie66]

Some people don't like a lot of things that would be beneficial to them. It is more political than economic. California is still wealthy, although many of its citizens and cities are not.

 

[RVAmeche]

Everyone complains when taxes get raised and everyone complains when the government doesn't have the funding to do things it should do.

 

[IRstuff]

government doesn't have the funding

And yet, the power companies are more than happy to charge us millipennies per mile for delivery of the same electricity that they now withhold from us, because those micropennies went into profit, rather than actual maintenance.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
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[RVAmeche]

But otherwise stock prices wouldn't go up as quickly (/s)

 

[JAE]

Saw this quote somewhere:
[blue]It costs about $3 million per mile to convert underground electric distribution lines from overhead, while the cost to build a mile of new overhead line is less than a third of that, at approximately $800,000 per mile, according to a section on PG&E’s website called Facts About Undergrounding Power Lines.

California has 25,526 miles of higher voltage transmission lines, and 239,557 miles of distribution lines, two-thirds of which are overhead, according to CPUC. Less than 100 miles per year are transitioned underground, meaning it would take more than 1,000 years to underground all the lines at the current rate.[/blue]

 

[MTNClimber]

Everyone complains when taxes get raised and everyone complains when the government doesn't have the funding to do things it should do.

This conversation always reminds of this scene.

Edit: Probably should add something slightly more beneficial to the conversation. This summer they applied a wrap and coating to the bottom 8' of wooden H-frames in my neighborhood (Colorado Rockies). I'm not sure if that will actually help since flames can get a lot higher than 8'. I wonder the cost difference steel monopoles vs putting lines underground? Especially since all of the lines burnt down last year were replaced with more wooden H-frames...

 

[IRstuff]

Less than 100 miles per year are transitioned underground

so barely $300 million was spent, but they consistently made "available" to stockholders over $1 billion per year, except for the massive loss allocated for the fire from last year.

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[JohnRBaker]

That's capitalism, American style.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
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[3DDave]

It is not going to be easy to put transmission lines underground in the rock of the hills and sharp valleys where the most difficult fires start.

And no, California would not allow the necessary clear-to-rock and continuous application of vegetation killing chemicals over a minimum 300 feet on each side of the transmission lines necessary to ensure that a line drop could not deflect in a high wind far enough to reach flammable material; nor would they appreciate the sudden runoff of mud into local streams and rivers nor mudslides onto roads where there was no longer plant material to retain the soil.

If they did, then every millionaire homeowner in LA on those angle-of-repose fire target hills would have cleared them to dirt as a fire-break a long time ago, and then watched their properties subside with the next heavy rain and head into the surround canyons.

 

[JohnRBaker]

One of the reasons why we chose to live down on flat land far from any untended brush or forest land.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[RRaghunath]

Replacing the bare overhead conductors with insulated ones should reduce the wild fires at the same time not costing a fortune to do the work. Why is that not an option!

 

[IRstuff]

The metals in the cables do not deteriorate in sunlight, but insulation does, unless you use the outrageously expensive stuff. Even then, something like Kynar is only expected to last 30 years. In any case, sufficiently thick Kynar to prevent arc-through would add 40% to the weight of the existing cables, which means that EVERYTHING needs to increased, tower strength, connections, cranes, transport trucks, etc. Note the latter means that additional truck trips are required to carry the heavier cables, per mile, so construction cost per mile is more expensive

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[stevenal]

Replacing the bare overhead conductors with insulated ones should reduce the wild fires at the same time not costing a fortune to do the work. Why is that not an option!

Full insulation would be similar to an underground cable. Too heavy, and cannot support itself. Covered conductor is sometimes used to prevent outages caused by wildlife, but when it falls, there is no fault and it remains energized on the ground with the utility unaware. Accidental encounters are unavoidable.

 

[3DDave]

One report claimed that one of the fires (not recent, but in last 10 years) started when the loop on an insulator from which the insulator hangs wore through or fatigued, dropping the insulator, the jumper connection, and the related transmission lines. This is similar to the Silver Bridge collapse.

I would expect that as that line fell it would hit the tower, causing a short and a massive arc; if it was insulated it would not immediately arc, but wear against the tower, unnoticed, until the insulation failed and it did short. There would be no indication of failure seen by the grid until either type of arc event.

State officials complained that the insulator failure would have been detected by a person climbing the tower, which is one thing that is done. But I think the transmission line has to be shut down to allow that, where helicopter surveys can happen with the lines still live.

Similarly there can be problems with the splices; failure inside the splice is difficult to inspect.

Perhaps there's an opportunity for building robots that operate like sloths, hanging from the lines and crawling along them with cameras and thermal sensors. They could climb the insulators and check the supports and provide high-magnification images of the splices. Helicopter surveys aren't close enough to see in detail and people climbing towers is likely to result in people getting killed.

 

[ATSE]

To answer Jay's initial post:
This is a failure of government.

PG&E has been offered (guaranteed) no competition, their customers have essentially no choice, and PG&E's profits and maintenance records have been explicitly approved by government regulators and politicians for decades.
And now California government (politicians) - many who receive generous campaign money - are assigning evil to this opportunistic firm. What do you expect? Do you blame a snake for eating mice? Of course not, that is what snakes do. The government has been tenderly nurturing this snake.

Capitalism is not on display here. Capitalism involves free choice, clear rules (regulation), and competition. None of these 3 existed, nor will exist, for PG&E.

When there is a single utility, this is a very similar situation as government-provided services.
Except one benefit for government: campaign cash. Public-owned utilities cannot directly provide campaign contributions. PG&E, however, provides millions of political dollars every year. This is why PG&E has existed all these years, despite historically poor customer service and significantly higher rates than adjacent government utilities like SMUD, and miserable maintenance records. The government loves the free money, even though they hate where it comes from.

If you think capitalism is the problem, buy a government-developed and marketed smart phone and car. Smart phones and cars have free markets, and 99% of us participate freely in these markets.

Tying this back to engineering and our profession:
I have worked for both private firms and public entities. Both have similar problems. However, getting rid of unmotivated and low quality employees in the public sector is nearly impossible. And these people are cancer to the moral of the department and the profession, but most government engineering departments keep these bottom feeders alive. The engineering community will excel when engineers have to compete; something that rarely happens in government.

 

[dauwerda]

There was a decent discussion about this over in the electrical forum as well. thread238-459050

 

[hokie66]

We are having a bad wildfire season in Australia as well, so can't send firefighters to help you this time.

 

[Phil1934]

Short term fix may be to use eminent domain to widen the power line easements where falling trees cannot touch the high voltage lines.

 

[CWB1]

The sad part of all this is that it's going to be the customers, taxpayers, and small businesses paying the price for all of this nonsense. I know many in manufacturing are losing contracts for work they cannot deliver, and a few major companies that are viewing this as the proverbial final straw prior to relocating elsewhere.