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decayo OP t1_jc5q5gu wrote

Reply to comment by Undaedalus in What is the deal with the NH grid? by decayo

To be clear, I understand that is the source of the problem, but there doesn't appear to be any resiliency. It seems like every tree fall hits a single point of failure that wipes out huge areas. I get it; multiple trees fall, but looking at the outage map, I doubt 20 trees suddenly all fell at exactly the same moment and the fact that one or two falls led to this large of an outage is wild.

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NHDraven t1_jc5rcrz wrote

New England doesn't want to spend money to retrofit underground utilities. Instead, they want to pump massive money into spot repairs.

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draggar t1_jc68jei wrote

This just isn't New England. I lived in south Florida for 10 years and all the older neighborhoods have above-ground wiring and the areas won't spend the money to put them underground, even though hundreds of poles and countless wires will go down with each hurricane - and the newer areas with underground lines are usually quick to get their power back since there's no individual repairs.

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RelativeMotion1 t1_jc6kic7 wrote

At $2 million per mile, there would need to be an awful lot of spot repairs to justify that.

Not that it doesn’t sound nice; power lines and poles gone, ROWs clear and open. Just don’t see how the cost would be justifiable, especially given the likely effect on rates.

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Andromeda321 t1_jc6o1k9 wrote

It’s one of those things that are exceptionally region dependent. I lived in the Netherlands for example and all the power lines were underground due to sandy soil, power went out maybe once in the five years I was there. But I can tell you right now, NH soil sure isn’t like it was there!

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RelativeMotion1 t1_jc6oyyj wrote

Yeah the $2m/mi figure is an average, and I suspect it would be more in many parts of NH due to difficult terrain and the prevalence of rock.

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AKBigDaddy t1_jc7gys1 wrote

It would be an incredibly long term investment- you're not going to see an ROI for likely 20+ years. But it would pay for itself long term. And in the mean time it would provide residents with far more reliable service.

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MusicalMerlin1973 t1_jc6sucr wrote

A lot of it has to do with an unwillingness to do line maintenance now. Whether it’s the corporation or people unwilling to have trees trimmed because scenic historic character blah blah blah. Also has to do with the fact we get a lot more wet snow storms than we used to.

I grew up here. I can count on one hand the number of times we lost power in the 80s and 90s. It was an exceptional situation. I live across the street from my childhood home now so apples to apples comparison. My generator usage is far more common than when we first built our house. We didn’t have multiple mud seasons every winter.

Count your blessings. If you live inland you’re fairly immune to hurricanes. Odds of a class 5 making it here are low. Odds of forest fire are still statistically low compared to other regions. Tornadoes are still a rare albeit increasing occurrence. Low risk of significant earthquake.

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nowhereman1223 t1_jc7ajbk wrote

What do you want to power company to do?

Are you suggesting they have the ability to power EVERY house from multiple directions?

The cost to do that in rural areas is prohibitive.

If you have an issue with outages, get solar, get wind, get a propane or natural gas powered generator. Chances are it's cheaper than the grid power anyway. Heck, a decent gas generator might be close to reasonable with the electric prices right now.

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