How much current flows through pylons?

Mar 18, 2017 84 Replies

There are a few intermediate voltages but I don't think it's very common and is probably only in places that have had a supply for around a centuary...

Here the primary substation is fed by a 33 kV line and back up 11 kV line. I think the 33 kV orginates at Penrith, the 11 kV from the primary at Little Selkeld. The 11 kV has a regulator in circuit a couple of miles from the primary substation. Even with the regulator our voltage wangs about all over the shop when the back up 11 kV is being used. Rises to above 255 at night and drops to 225 ish during the day. 240 to 245 is the normal range. It was complaining about the over voltage that lead me to finding out the 11 kV was fed from Little Selkeld, as they dropped a couple of hundred volts off it there and things got better (only 253 overnight) but doing that reduces everyone else fed from that line so it didn't stay like that. Presumably the regulator is hitting an end stop at night...

From the primamry substation the 11 kV distribution is constructed as a collection of half a dozen or so interconnected rings. These rings are normally operated as spurs with an auto reclosure on each one near the primary. Manual operated air swtches that are normally open or normally closed enable any section of line to be isolated or fed from either end. There are a number of spurs, some branched, that can only be fed from one end. We are on the end of one that only feeds us.

Well that is a voltage I don't remember seeing anywhere.I'm off down the local in minute where a the missus gets gardening tips from a bloke who is always winning growing competitions often calls in.,He is also a retired Linesman for what was Southern Electric, I'll ask him if he knew of it any area. It's possibly a std that hung over in a particular area or two from prenationalisation days .

I'm genuinely surprised that you think that.

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Been in use donkeys years,the 11Kv that crossed our land on wood poles went in 1958 and a couple of miles away the small Substation had 33Kv wood pole lines feeding it as do 1000's of others .Many wood poles have been replaced in recent times with new wooden ones a little taller in a rolling programme to raise the height of lines above fields as farm machinery has got taller.

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These are relatively recent development allowing wind farms easy connection and network strengthening and it is understandable that many will not be aware of them, the tall insulators in the trident formation are the most obvious clue.

G.Harman

Never heard of 3.3kV - all the overheads here are 11KV apart from the big one at 33kV.

Oh and the 240v stuff of course.

There arent.

Are most power lines on pairs of wooden poles

No.

33KV is wooden pole stuff as is 11KV and the odd 240V

132kV is where the lattice towers start

All the 11 kV feed and distribution and the 33 kV feed is on wooden poles around here.

Completely wrong

There is no 3.3kV

up to 33KV is on wooden poles

Next step up from 240V is 11KV 3 ph.

educate yourself

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It happens that The Natural Philosopher formulated :

No sorry, you are wrong. I have used it many times on large motors.

They're wooden in my area, too.

I wonder if anyone's ever borrowed their neighbour's electricity when theirs is off, only to find it coming back on and joined phase 1 and 2 together with a big bang?

Well I asked him and and he said that he never came across any 3.3Kv. A reasonable amount of 6.6Kv on older installations in the Portsmouth , Southampton and Bournemouth areas that dated back to when the power stations belonged to the local authorities but under the electricity board it was 33Kv and 11Kv as the distribution voltages.

G.Harman

All very well as long as there's a suitable fuse. But when diversity is used in case of say a double mains socket in your house only taking 20 amps, but the fuse protecting it is 30A, you get fires.

5A maximum I assume. If you use 5A on average, you'd get a very big electricity bill.

Continuously? That's way too much. Think what your bill would be.

I thought nowadays everything went underground, yet a new lot of houses across the road from me have overhead telephone cables. Why is this?

I thought it sounded a little ambiguous when I wrote it. Probably quite a bit, as if its raining, you can even feel it coming through the air.

Did you get anywhere with your complaint? I get 241V to 256V, which I consider very poor since 230V is supposed to be the normal. It's enough to regularly make my UPS put an overvoltage warning light on and step it down itself. When I phoned them, they sent someone out in 30 minutes and sounded worried on the phone, yet when the electrician arrived and confirmed my voltage readings, he said "within legal limits, nothing we can do, although if I was in charge I'd step it down a level".

Yes, I was just wondering what the capacity was.

Were they being supplied by on-site transformers or local generators? The discussion is about the distribution network which seems to skip

3.3 kV and starts at 11 kV.

I've seen a pylon with heavy snow on the wires. The phases got close enough to arc.

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