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Thread: Bury the power lines

  1. #51

    Default Re: Bury the power lines!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    This ongoing important issue probably needs its own thread.

    From the Oklahoma Sierra Club facebook page:
    50 advocates stood up for solar today with yellow "Don't Block the Sun" umbrellas during a pro-solar choice rally and hearing at the OK Corporation Commission. Lots of media were there too! You can still share your thoughts on solar and wind energy with the attorney in charge of this case, Natosha Scott at n.scott@occemail.com. You don't have to be an expert -- just tell your story. The Attorney General and OCC's own Public Utilities Division both say no to OG&E's plan which fails to prove that full service customers are subsidizing solar customers. Thanks to The Alliance for Solar Choice (TASC) and Tell Utilities Solar Won't Be Killed (TUSK) for supporting this action.

    https://www.facebook.com/oksierraclu...04040982952127

  2. #52

    Default Re: Bury the power lines!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhIvTLxUPBg

    Bloom energy might be a thing for the future

  3. #53
    HangryHippo Guest

    Default Re: Bury the power lines!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    That Bloom Energy is pretty incredible. Thanks for the video.

  4. #54

    Default Re: Bury the power lines!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Quote Originally Posted by Pete View Post
    We don't need to bury all of them... Just prioritize areas and start the process.

    This is how other cities do it, including the one I just moved from.
    I believe that is happening in most of the communities in OK.

  5. #55

    Default Re: Bury the power lines!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    The federal credit was 39% (I think) though that is being phased out...

  6. Default Re: Bury the power lines!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Quote Originally Posted by mkjeeves View Post
    I know someone who lived in the Crown Heights area (IIRC) who had their existing overhead lines from the pole to their house placed underground at their own expense. OG and E required them to replace the meter base with one designed for underground service, to trench and install a 3" PVC conduit from there to the pole at the back of the property. OG and E cut it over from there at no expense. I'm not sure if they would still do that.
    They will and do. It's very common for commercial. Take somewhere like S. Meridian where the poles are very visible. You will see lots of the poles with PVC pipe running from just below the transformer to the ground. It continues on to the building's meter or CT cabinet.

  7. #57

    Default Re: Bury the power lines!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Quote Originally Posted by SoonerSoftail View Post
    They will and do. It's very common for commercial. Take somewhere like S. Meridian where the poles are very visible. You will see lots of the poles with PVC pipe running from just below the transformer to the ground. It continues on to the building's meter or CT cabinet.
    I know the first neighborhood Edmond converted, they surveyed the residents about absorbing the cost, and I believe the HOA (through dues) helped pay for the conversion. Now, new neighborhoods in Edmond are almost always buried by default, but it's converting the older ones that are harder. My parents, off of Rankin and 9th had their lines buried a few years back, but they didn't pay anything for it, so not sure how the program is working.

  8. #58
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    Default Re: Bury the power lines!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Are you guys saying OGE absorbs the cost to bury the lines? That is great. I'm doing a project in downtown of another city similar to OKC and to have the lines buried in front and side of our site and to bury the transformer in a vault cost us tens of thousands of dollars (near 6 figures). If OKC does it for free, it should eliminate everyone's gripes in short order.

  9. Default Re: Bury the power lines!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    c
    Quote Originally Posted by Rover View Post
    Are you guys saying OGE absorbs the cost to bury the lines? That is great. I'm doing a project in downtown of another city similar to OKC and to have the lines buried in front and side of our site and to bury the transformer in a vault cost us tens of thousands of dollars (near 6 figures). If OKC does it for free, it should eliminate everyone's gripes in short order.
    No. Read mkjeeves first post on the subject. OG&E is happy to bury the line from the pole to your home or business........ at your expense.

  10. #60

    Default Re: Bury the power lines!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Quote Originally Posted by SoonerSoftail View Post
    cNo. Read mkjeeves first post on the subject. OG&E is happy to bury the line from the pole to your home or business........ at your expense.
    The home I was referring too was a bit different. It was an older existing occupied home that was being served with an overhead line. The homeowner wanted the line buried, contacted OGE to find out if and how that could be done. OGE gave them an underground meter base. The homeowner hired an electrician to install the meter base, dig a trench and lay conduit to the OGE pole. Then OGE pulled wire in that underground pipe. There was no charge by OGE to do that but the homeowner had to pay the electrical contractor. The houses on both side continued to have overhead lines and the main OGE lines were still on poles behind the house. I do not remember why the homeowner did that. I think it primarily beautification.

    On new construction or new service rework, it's similar. If the owner wants to go underground OGE will frequently trench directly to the meter if there is no pavement or obstructions. Sometimes the contractor has to install conduit underground to an easement or pole. It varies also by what power is available, what has to be built, what the owner wants and what OGE can justify providing for the expected payback. They get load information on new construction, look at what they have to do to serve added load and the expected payback time. They aren't big on making changes at their expense they can't justify by adding revenue.

  11. #61

    Default Re: Bury the power lines!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Quote Originally Posted by jerrywall View Post
    Do we know what the surcharge is yet? Is anything in place? Arizona has what amounts to basically $5 surcharge per month for solar customers. I believe this will be controlled by the CC and not the energy companies.
    What they're asking the CC for is more like 15-20 a month, which seems a bit much, and I don't really understand enough about what they are describing to have a full understanding of what your bill would look like.

    Solar advocates criticize OG&E's billing plan for demand charges | News OK

    From the article:

    The demand charge would take the peak monthly electricity demand from a distributed generation customer's home in 15-minute increments. It would assess a charge of $2.68 per kilowatt of peak demand. Most households have peak usage between 6 and 8 kilowatts, meaning the charge would be between $16 and $21 for distributed generation customers.
    My question would have to be what that $2.68 is actually being charged on. The power you're still pulling from the grid? The power you're selling back? If its the former (most likely by my reading), it seems like if you had a solar installation that generated enough power to fully handle your own peak usage then I'm not sure I you would end up paying anything anyway under the new rules. But that doesn't make sense as described, so I'm a bit lost.

  12. #62

    Default Re: Bury the power lines!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Quote Originally Posted by David View Post
    What they're asking the CC for is more like 15-20 a month, which seems a bit much, and I don't really understand enough about what they are describing to have a full understanding of what your bill would look like.

    Solar advocates criticize OG&E's billing plan for demand charges | News OK

    From the article:



    My question would have to be what that $2.68 is actually being charged on. The power you're still pulling from the grid? The power you're selling back? If its the former (most likely by my reading), it seems like if you had a solar installation that generated enough power to fully handle your own peak usage then I'm not sure I you would end up paying anything anyway under the new rules. But that doesn't make sense as described, so I'm a bit lost.
    Here's my 5 minute take and it could be wrong. The average home solar system is 5k. But it only puts out 5k during optimum conditions. Lets take two houses with 8k peak demand average and one has the 5k system. The meter is going to track the use for a month in 15 minute increments on the house with the solar system and hit them with a tariff for the maximum peak demand during the month. So one day of the month it's heavily overcast, stormy, the AC is running, the house is drawing 9 k and the solar system is only putting out 2k, the meter is going to show 7k demand for a few hours. The home owner is going to get charged that month for 7k demand tariff at $2.68 per k, in addition to paying for the electricity they used from the grid during the month. The house without the solar system pays only for the electricity they used, no tariff.

    Demand meters have been used on some commercial places in a different method and it might be somewhat similar. On those commercial systems, they record the highest demand for the month and the customer is charged a rate where the higher the demand the higher the rate for each kwh used during that month.

  13. #63
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    Default Re: Bury the power lines!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Apologies if this is already linked up thread, but the issue of burying power lines came up on Twitter following the recent accident in Paseo and the official OG&E twitter account responded with this link:

    https://www.oge.com/wps/portal/oge/a...sition-papers/

    That page has a link to their position paper on buried lines.

    Not advocating one way or the other, just passing it along for info.

  14. #64

    Default Re: Bury the power lines!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Thank you for that information. A drunk driver apparently hit a power line and knocked out power to the paseo for upwards of 12 hours for some people. This affected over 2000 people. The guy made a stupid mistake but damn he is in a world of trouble if they seek reimbursement and damages.

    I know this doesn’t happen that much but it does happen— it’s something that wouldn’t if utility lines were underground. Not mention storms bringing them down and a huge beautification factor.

    A reasonable plan to bury utility lines on new road construction, full reconstruction(not simple resurfacing), and special projects to bury them in high profile districts like the Paseo. I’ll be back next year to rant about this issue again.

    https://freepressokc.com/the-paseo-p...crash/#respond

  15. #65

    Default Re: Bury the power lines!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Rant all you want you’ll just yelling a computer screen. It’s 10-15x the cost of overhead lines.

  16. #66

    Default Re: Bury the power lines!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Quote Originally Posted by gopokes88 View Post
    Rant all you want you’ll just yelling a computer screen. It’s 10-15x the cost of overhead lines.
    Yet somehow other countries, other cities, and even OKC finds a way to do it.

  17. #67

    Default Re: Bury the power lines!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    ^

    Very, very few do it after above-ground lines have already been installed.

    When I lived in Thousand Oaks, CA they spent a small fortune to bury lines along the main N/S thoroughfare (Moorpark Road) but stopped after a couple of miles because it was crazy expensive.

    Most of the rest of the town still has overhead lines and T.O. is a pretty affluent community.


    The best you can hope for is they are buried in new developments and that is largely the case here.

  18. #68

    Default Re: Bury the power lines!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Quote Originally Posted by Plutonic Panda View Post
    Yet somehow other countries, other cities, and even OKC finds a way to do it.
    Transmission lines are very rarely buried. Which is what that guy hit.

    Distribution lines are more often buried and it’s slightly more feasible.

    Europe buries line at a good clip, they also pay $.50/KWhr (or basically surge pricing on smart hours as the normal rate) and don’t have brutally hot summer when they must run a huge AC.

    Most people disagree with you which is why they are overhead not buried.

  19. #69

    Default Re: Bury the power lines!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Thank god we now have lawmakers starting to want to have discussions about burying power lines and the typical response I’ve received from too many people on the “iTS ToO eXpEnSivE” bandwagon.

    It will take money but it doesn’t have to be all done at once. The are many benefits to having underground power lines like beautification for one with the real factor not having to worry about outages as much. They can still happen but won’t be as big of an issue.

    Hopefully we get a real plan and this isn’t just talk.

    https://kfor.com/news/two-state-lawm...n-in-oklahoma/

  20. #70

    Default Re: Bury the power lines!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Appears that OG&E is not going to fulfill its promise of restoring everyone's power by tonight at 11pm

    Still have 45,000 households still without power.

    Appears there needs to be an audit of OG&E's preparedness plan. OG&E should be embarrassed.

  21. #71

    Default Re: Bury the power lines!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Quote Originally Posted by OKCretro View Post
    Appears that OG&E is not going to fulfill its promise of restoring everyone's power by tonight at 11pm

    Still have 45,000 households still without power.

    Appears there needs to be an audit of OG&E's preparedness plan. OG&E should be embarrassed.
    I think there's been a number of factors come into play. It's been an active hurricane season with hits in just the past couple of weeks so there were probably OG&E crews down there helping out. Secondly is just the shear amount tree damage done. I had all three of my trees heavily damaged by the ice. Had this happened in January, the damage wouldn't have been nearly as bad because there wouldn't have been leaves on the trees. I just got my power back on today. I lost it last Tuesday. I was getting irritated about it, but I know there were a number of factors coming into play.

  22. #72

    Default Re: Bury the power lines!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    About the only good thing you can say after a storm like this is that the next few ice storms and severe weather events may not cause as many outages simply due to the state having lost so much tree coverage from this one. Still though, it's a really bad situation.

  23. #73

    Default Re: Bury the power lines!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Quote Originally Posted by adaniel View Post
    I think most people would rather run the risk of 12-24 hours of inconvenience every few years over a extra $2,700 a year out of their pocket.
    My damage due to overhead service line is in excess of 2700.

  24. #74

    Default Re: Bury the power lines!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Is anyone here investing in generators after this? I will be in my home in Edmond and I know 2 relatives that will be as well.

  25. #75

    Default Re: Bury the power lines!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Quote Originally Posted by OKCretro View Post
    Appears that OG&E is not going to fulfill its promise of restoring everyone's power by tonight at 11pm

    Still have 45,000 households still without power.

    Appears there needs to be an audit of OG&E's preparedness plan. OG&E should be embarrassed.
    I think Mother Nature should be embarrassed for icing before leaves had a chance to fall.

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