Determining Distribution Project Length

[DistCoop]

Hello,

I am a system planning engineer at a consulting firm for electric distribution utilities. Among my tasks is to develop construction work plans, identifying future projects, line upgrades/additions, etc. These work plans are used for future spending estimation and purchasing... the length of each project (e.g. 4.3 miles of three phase 336 ACSR) needs to be fairly accurate.

I had never considered changes in elevation, as I used to work in a pretty flat area. I now work in a very hilly area, and clients have been asking me to give more thought to elevation changes in my length estimation.

The idea I'm currently playing with is drawing a path in Google Earth. I've found a tool online that will allow you to import a kmz file, and it will spit out a text file of length and elevation per plotted point, which I then use with some Excel magic to come up with accurate length of projects.

So one question... is there a way I can get the elevation information exported out of Google Earth without going through a third party? I have not yet found a way.

Another question... does anybody have another method they use, or any other ideas?

 

[jghrist]

Personally, I think it is crazy to worry about the difference in line length from elevation changes at the planning stage. Consider that if you had a 30% grade (maybe possible if the line is in Tibet), you would increase the length only 4.4%. Other variables will cause errors in the estimates much larger than this.