AC-line supplies - under 1% loss

The most expensive distribution transformers (with oriented crystal iron cores) go in rural locations, because the quiescent current for high-L is less of an (unbillable) energy drain for the power company.

Never smelled ozone, but one HV tree used to have a continuous buzz/hiss (probably corona, but never saw the glow); then a month ago, a crew showed up, redid the works, and now... it's much less alarming walking down that sidewalk.

Is it possible that residential metering is so good that the power companies can pinpoint these losses by data analysis?

whit3rd wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

Seems unlikely when I used to make IR thermometers with rifle scopes on them so they could go around pointing them at the insulators and transformers looking for heat, that telltale indicator of leakage (insulators) or failed operation (xfmrs).

I am sure metering and such is much better now too. Less inductive loads than back in the hang a shitload of caps on the line days. Also I have seen way better capacitors and seen them in really well designed substations and such, so they likely are very good at seeing "which legg" of a system is sporting the most losses, or a greater than usually tolerated number indicating a more intensive leak condition or such.

One would think they could though. Although TDR type stuff used in Ethernet, etc. so they can pinpoint to the foot on pretty long runs, where a failure point is.

With power, a TDR type system would likely be too noisey to give an accurate 'picture' of a grid segment. Also all while the thing is up and capable of roasting one to a crisp in a heartbeat or two.

It seems that boots on the ground is very likely the best, most cost efficient way, since facts get recorded and repairs get scheduled or done, and lines have to be looked at periodically anyway, one step at a time.

The monitoring gear to get that fancy is probably not a priority (obviously) since they allow so much loss now.

Since they privatized, the American public likely took a hit in quality of service as the bean counters and greed set in.

Bridges fall, and they call it a crisis, and I say the crisis is city management that squanders funds earmarked for infrastructure maintainence.

A lot of folks got real fat on this great nation and they all have nice houses and real Cherry furniture yada yada while the standard of living for the rest of the nation melted away to nothing.

That 20 % sounds a lot and is for the whole network from generator to user load, not th losses for a single component, such as a transformer. In addition that sounds for peak load conditions, not daily or annual averages.

can be significant. If the daily peak period is short, the lost energy doesn't economically justify the line upgrade.

Of course, you should avoid loading the line so much that there are going to be brownouts during peak hours.

Unless the pulse source is very close, the mains wiring inductance (in the order of 1 uH/m) together with the X capacitor capacitance will extend the pulse rise and fall times.

There's too little common collected/applied knowledge re energy, carbon, man-hour and capital inputs to our individual and collective maintenance. Claiming 1% conversion loss in any process doesn't help.

You should re-check your transformer number, too.

Ashes to ashes - has an efficiency with many zeros ofter the decimal point; but there's no 'point' in thinking like that.

RL

Probably these numbers come from best cases. A story about London's underground cable tunnels shocked me: "A typical 1.8-km tunnel stretch between ventilation shafts produces 400 kilowatts of heat". Forget 1%.

Mother nature gets its efficiencies where it can.

With a 10 km tunnel, the heat lost would be 2.5 MW. If that represents

No big deal for a 400 kV line, but as far as I know, there are no 400 kVac cables available, but that power would just be with 100-200 kV line capacity, especially if the tunnels are less than 10 km long.