"The more immediate issue is a matter of cost and benefit," he said. "Given the economy we're in, the big concern for utilities and regulators is whether something like [burying lines] would bring about a rate increase."

Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. www.eenews.net, 202-628-6500

15 Comments

1. 1. ripuree 01:22 PM 11/15/12

   What is preventing all power companies to at least start implementing "smart meters"?

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2. 2. Graydon 02:28 PM 11/15/12

   Simpler solution: BURY THE WIRES!!!

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3. 3. jerryd 03:15 PM 11/15/12

   
   One of the problems was the wires were buried in the subway tunnels !!
   
   The sollution is having subgrids like 1 block size that supply much of their own power plus heat making generation 85% eff instead of at best 50% eff.
   
   Plus they could supply all needed power during peak and use the utility supply off peak to save both money.
   
   A 1 block unit can convert garbage, plastics, solar. wind, cogen ands share heat or A/C at 50% of the cost of utility power all the time. And give jobs making the plastics, garbage into fuels and power.
   
   Not only could they supply the blocks electric and heat but transport fuels too. But utilities will fight it tooth and nail as it takes their power away.

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4. 4. Jürgen Hubert in reply to ripuree 04:16 AM 11/16/12

   Expense. Smart Meters are absurdly expensive the moment, despite largely being electronics.

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5. 5. jerryd 08:04 AM 11/16/12

   
   Jurgen where did you get your info from? I already have one which not only wasn't that expensive to the utility but much that rather small amountwas paid for by a gov program.
   
   But the utility also gets great savings in labor, fuel because they just drive by instead of getting out and reading each meter. I expect they save enough in 1 yr to pay the extra cost and they are likely to last 20-30 yrs. Do the math.
   
   And many other advantages help save the utilities manpower. They are well worth the rather small cost which is reflected in my billing charge not having to pay for the labor, etc saved.

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6. 6. Quinn the Eskimo 09:27 PM 11/17/12

   Many people with "smart meters" are reporting significant INCREASES in their bills! Cha-ching.
   
   Wires hanging on poles will be susceptible to winds (and drunk drivers).

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7. 7. jerryd 04:54 PM 11/18/12

   
   Those who want bury the wires better be ready for higher costs and longer times to get repairs done when the do happen. Do you want that?
   
   By far less expensive is as I said above have a mirco grid like a 1 block grid then wires can be in conduits and if the gird goes down the micro grid doesn't as it has it's own generating it can ramp up.
   
   That's how you make reliability. Plus you have an in house repair person on call so any problems get fixed right away.
   
   Sadly so many posting here have little knowledge of the subjects.

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8. 8. seanacoy 05:44 PM 11/18/12

   I would be interested in a coherent explanation why local utilities, particularly Con Ed, have not done more of what the article lists. I am thoroughly puzzled by the arguments I have heard elsewhere that burying lines is prohibitively expensive. I would have thought that Sandy repair costs will be prohibitively expensive. In the suburbs north of New York City, I would guess that buried lines would have cut outages and time to return to power by some 50-70%, as many of the line outages were trees falling on elevated power lines. Similarly with smart meters and other smart grid approaches: days would have been saved in repair (and administration) if the utility company didn't have to rely on customer contacts to determine what was out and what remained out after some key and trunkline repairs. What I find most puzzling is that the Governor of New York wants the Federal Government to pay for upgrading to a "smart grid," apparently because Con Ed has not sought to develop and invest in this, even though it would have saved substantial expenses over recent years in storm-consequence repairs. A PS to Quinn: in a previous storm we did not lose power until two days later when a contract repair crew inadvertently knocked down a perfectly good pole with a transformer on it!
   
   What is needed for US utilities is a combination of transparency (Con Ed does not even share its maps with local police and fire officials) and intelligent planning. In some places burying lines (as is done within some of the newer high-end developments of single-family homes) makes sense; in low-lying areas, perhaps other strategies such as tree-pruning and minimizing distance from end-user to high-ground trunk lines might help.
   
   For the moment, however, the reverse of orderly is happening - a rush on private dwelling generators, without any overall plan.
   
   I would have expected better from companies that carry on the T.A.Edison legacy for inovation and planning.

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9. 9. Gigahertz 09:20 AM 11/20/12

   The utility companies are lying and the public is buying it! Climate change is not an excuse to "deploy" poorly designed and dangerous "smart" transmitting Digital Utility meters (DU meters).
   There is nothing environmental about DU meters.
   DU meters were designed and manufactured with a radiation emissions problem. The utility companies are lying about the safety of the meters.

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10. 10. DOmick 09:44 AM 11/20/12

    In addition to storms, the grid is also highly vulnerable to sabotage. For more information on vulnerabilities of the grid and the potentially catastrophic consequences resulting from sabotage to it, see: http://operationcircuitbreaker.wordpress.com/

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11. 11. ilurvelinux 12:04 PM 12/3/12

    I have read up a bit on this subject in a report in Oz, One thing that really sold me on the idea of smart metres was the fact that power plants are basically guessing what power we use at any moment. As such, they over-compensate by providing 100% power most of the time to cover their bases. With smart metres they will be able to see in real time what power is needed, and accordingly ramp down (or up) the output if demand lowers or jumps thus saving wasted power output! Which should translate to less burnouts of transformers & cheaper power bills. Why did they do this instead of the cableing, transformers first? Probably because it was the cheapest with the biggest return and quicker to implement. Seriously though.. losing 25% of your power in transmission is disgustingly inefficient. And being AC power you have to sync up all the power transmitted to differing phases and frequencies, if you want to "divert power" from one area to the next. These substations that sync up the different power grids lose energy in the process.. stupid! Honestly perhaps we should make the shift back to DC which would do away with the need for sync-up stations and the need for inverter boxes on every house with a solar system. Remember solar power is DC? And the storage problem, reminds me of a old Indian saying: "The best place to store you left-over food is in your neighbours stomach". Apply that to the Grid and we should connect all power grids across the world internationally together. We would never need storage as somewhere they would have too much wind or Solar and need a buyer. We can leave this bit to the free market to sort out the prices. Power loss you say? HVDC dude only loses 5% power every 1000km's thus making it economical to wire up the worlds grids. Might even stop a few wars being that we'd all become interdependent on each other.. Also would it kill you guys to switch to metric?

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12. 12. ilurvelinux 05:25 AM 12/4/12

    I have read up a bit on this subject in a report in Oz, One thing that really sold me on the idea of smart metres was the fact that power plants are basically guessing what power we use at any moment. As such, they over-compensate by providing 100% power most of the time to cover their bases. With smart metres they will be able to see in real time what power is needed, and accordingly ramp down (or up) the output if demand lowers or jumps thus saving wasted power output! Which should translate to less burnouts of transformers & cheaper power bills. Why did they do this instead of the cableing, transformers first? Probably because it was the cheapest with the biggest return and quicker to implement. Seriously though.. losing 25% of your power in transmission is disgustingly inefficient. And being AC power you have to sync up all the power transmitted to differing phases and frequencies, if you want to "divert power" from one area to the next. These substations that sync up the different power grids lose energy in the process.. stupid! Honestly perhaps we should make the shift back to DC which would do away with the need for sync-up stations and the need for inverter boxes on every house with a solar system. Remember solar power is DC? And the storage problem, reminds me of a old Indian saying: "The best place to store you left-over food is in your neighbours stomach". Apply that to the Grid and we should connect all power grids across the world internationally together. We would never need storage as somewhere they would have too much wind or Solar and need a buyer. We can leave this bit to the free market to sort out the prices. Power loss you say? HVDC dude only loses 5% power every 1000km's thus making it economical to wire up the worlds grids. Might even stop a few wars being that we'd all become interdependent on each other.. Also would it kill you guys to switch to metric?

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13. 13. ilurvelinux 08:37 AM 12/5/12

    I have read up a bit on this subject in a report in Oz, One thing that really sold me on the idea of smart metres was the fact that power plants are basically guessing what power we use at any moment. As such, they over-compensate by providing 100% power most of the time to cover their bases. With smart metres they will be able to see in real time what power is needed, and accordingly ramp down (or up) the output if demand lowers or jumps thus saving wasted power output! Which should translate to less burnouts of transformers & cheaper power bills. Why did they do this instead of the cableing, transformers first? Probably because it was the cheapest with the biggest return and quicker to implement. Seriously though.. losing 25% of your power in transmission is disgustingly inefficient. And being AC power you have to sync up all the power transmitted to differing phases and frequencies, if you want to "divert power" from one area to the next. These substations that sync up the different power grids lose energy in the process.. stupid! Honestly perhaps we should make the shift back to DC which would do away with the need for sync-up stations and the need for inverter boxes on every house with a solar system. Remember solar power is DC? And the storage problem, reminds me of a old Indian saying: "The best place to store you left-over food is in your neighbours stomach". Apply that to the Grid and we should connect all power grids across the world internationally together. We would never need storage as somewhere they would have too much wind or Solar and need a buyer. We can leave this bit to the free market to sort out the prices. Power loss you say? HVDC dude only loses 5% power every 1000km's thus making it economical to wire up the worlds grids. Might even stop a few wars being that we'd all become interdependent on each other.. Also would it kill you guys to switch to metric?

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14. 14. ilurvelinux 08:39 AM 12/5/12

    Sorry, my comment wasn't coming up on the sight.. tried three times.. my bad

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15. 15. ilurvelinux 08:40 AM 12/5/12

    site* ugh!

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