Wendy Scholl
12-03-2009, 07:21 PM
A very informative 12/3 PSE hosted evening meeting at the Hwy410 Community Center. My personal take away from this meeting is:
*** All Greenwater residences should have a generator, especially if you are a full-time resident or are here more than weekends and holidays.
*** Consider a whole house surge protection unit, as the next significant PSE upgrade to the system grid is 2015.
*** Absolutely have at minimum a 1 week emergency disaster supplies kit
If you were unable to attend or did not receive the PSE mailing, here are some of my meeting notes:
1. Next Wed 12/10 from 8am to 8pm is a planned 12 hour power outage for all of Greenwater, CV, CRR, etc.
2. Crystal Ski Area will have full operation on generator power.
3. PSE work planned is 2 new "A" frame type poles on Hancock side of White River and 1 new "H" frame 95ft pole on the Hwy 410 side.
4. PSE work objective is the relocation of the main transmission line to avoid potential flood-related damage from the White River. Location of this work is below Greenwater at the old Hancock bridge.
5. Hwy 410 vehicle traffic will be reduced to one lane likely two nights: Mon 12/7 and Tues 12/8
6. This PSE work is dependent on WSDOT providing permission for the "H" frame pole on the 410 Hwy side.
7. If obtaining WSDOT permission delays PSE, they will target the outage for the following week on Wed 12/16. If further delayed, the Christmas week will not be a scheduled outage time frame.
8. Per PSE representative: No surges are anticipated from this work as the distribution line out of the Greenwater substation is not what PSE is working on. The relocation will affect the transmission line going into the substation.
PSE primarily held this meeting to provide information to residences about next week's relocation of the transmission line, but a number of attendees had questions about the recent winter 2009 power surges. The following are some of my notes regarding this segment of the meeting:
A. A few attendees referred to the number of serious power surges that caused many residences to each exceed a loss expense of $1,000. Question: Why in the last 4 to 5 years has there been so many power surges? PSE representative had no answer.
B. A couple of attendees stated there were many consecutive years since the early 70's that the power would go out, but when it came back on residences did not experience any power surges. PSE representative had no explanation.
C. PSE representative reported 39 surge arresters since July 2009 have been installed at the load distribution line side (residence side) of transformers. He said rational of where an arrester was installed was based on the location in the system grid and if there is more than one residence fed off a transformer then an arrester was installed.
D. PSE representative explained that an arrester gives it's life if surge is large enough. When an arrester fails then the residences power will be out that are directly fed from that transformer arrester location.
E. Attendee question about a PSE cold load start also knocking out water heaters, etc. PSE representative said this would be due to a large number of residences having many power draw units on, such as furnaces, and other large appliances.
F. Attendee questions: Why so many damaging surges over a month's period that affected certain sections of Crystal River Ranch (CRR) with physically an entire CRR quadrant having no surges? Is it because some surge arresters were installed in CRR a couple of years ago, but not enough of them to protect other physical sections? Attendee said many surge impact areas were not due to trees down or limbs on the lines. PSE representative had no answer.
G. Attendee question: What amperage size should a whole house surge protector be? PSE representative had no answer.
H. Attendee question: Is it true that there are multiple locations a PSE line fix equipment crew cannot physically access the transmission line? PSE representative said they can walk the entire line to Enumclaw, but are unable to get large fix equipment physically to the transmission line at multiple locations. He explained current regulations are limiting and more difficult for PSE regarding road access improvements, tree cutting permission, etc.
I. Attendee question: Should every Greenwater resident have a generator and a whole house surge protection unit? PSE representative said personally, yes he would have a generator, but did not have sufficient knowledge to provide an answer regarding a whole house surge protection unit.
J. PSE representative said there is a definite project by 2015 to bring in additional power, replace suspect poles, line improvement and work the multi agency permission process.
K. Multiple attendees requested that PSE make sure any notification mailing such as this meeting be sent to the billing address, not the meter location address.
--
Wendy
wscholl@gmail.com
*** All Greenwater residences should have a generator, especially if you are a full-time resident or are here more than weekends and holidays.
*** Consider a whole house surge protection unit, as the next significant PSE upgrade to the system grid is 2015.
*** Absolutely have at minimum a 1 week emergency disaster supplies kit
If you were unable to attend or did not receive the PSE mailing, here are some of my meeting notes:
1. Next Wed 12/10 from 8am to 8pm is a planned 12 hour power outage for all of Greenwater, CV, CRR, etc.
2. Crystal Ski Area will have full operation on generator power.
3. PSE work planned is 2 new "A" frame type poles on Hancock side of White River and 1 new "H" frame 95ft pole on the Hwy 410 side.
4. PSE work objective is the relocation of the main transmission line to avoid potential flood-related damage from the White River. Location of this work is below Greenwater at the old Hancock bridge.
5. Hwy 410 vehicle traffic will be reduced to one lane likely two nights: Mon 12/7 and Tues 12/8
6. This PSE work is dependent on WSDOT providing permission for the "H" frame pole on the 410 Hwy side.
7. If obtaining WSDOT permission delays PSE, they will target the outage for the following week on Wed 12/16. If further delayed, the Christmas week will not be a scheduled outage time frame.
8. Per PSE representative: No surges are anticipated from this work as the distribution line out of the Greenwater substation is not what PSE is working on. The relocation will affect the transmission line going into the substation.
PSE primarily held this meeting to provide information to residences about next week's relocation of the transmission line, but a number of attendees had questions about the recent winter 2009 power surges. The following are some of my notes regarding this segment of the meeting:
A. A few attendees referred to the number of serious power surges that caused many residences to each exceed a loss expense of $1,000. Question: Why in the last 4 to 5 years has there been so many power surges? PSE representative had no answer.
B. A couple of attendees stated there were many consecutive years since the early 70's that the power would go out, but when it came back on residences did not experience any power surges. PSE representative had no explanation.
C. PSE representative reported 39 surge arresters since July 2009 have been installed at the load distribution line side (residence side) of transformers. He said rational of where an arrester was installed was based on the location in the system grid and if there is more than one residence fed off a transformer then an arrester was installed.
D. PSE representative explained that an arrester gives it's life if surge is large enough. When an arrester fails then the residences power will be out that are directly fed from that transformer arrester location.
E. Attendee question about a PSE cold load start also knocking out water heaters, etc. PSE representative said this would be due to a large number of residences having many power draw units on, such as furnaces, and other large appliances.
F. Attendee questions: Why so many damaging surges over a month's period that affected certain sections of Crystal River Ranch (CRR) with physically an entire CRR quadrant having no surges? Is it because some surge arresters were installed in CRR a couple of years ago, but not enough of them to protect other physical sections? Attendee said many surge impact areas were not due to trees down or limbs on the lines. PSE representative had no answer.
G. Attendee question: What amperage size should a whole house surge protector be? PSE representative had no answer.
H. Attendee question: Is it true that there are multiple locations a PSE line fix equipment crew cannot physically access the transmission line? PSE representative said they can walk the entire line to Enumclaw, but are unable to get large fix equipment physically to the transmission line at multiple locations. He explained current regulations are limiting and more difficult for PSE regarding road access improvements, tree cutting permission, etc.
I. Attendee question: Should every Greenwater resident have a generator and a whole house surge protection unit? PSE representative said personally, yes he would have a generator, but did not have sufficient knowledge to provide an answer regarding a whole house surge protection unit.
J. PSE representative said there is a definite project by 2015 to bring in additional power, replace suspect poles, line improvement and work the multi agency permission process.
K. Multiple attendees requested that PSE make sure any notification mailing such as this meeting be sent to the billing address, not the meter location address.
--
Wendy
wscholl@gmail.com