Working On The Lines

[slippyr4]

I was told the design was originally based on HV ring mains such that one section of the ring could be isolated for maintainance without losing supply to anyone. The two sides of the ring were often carried on the same 6 wire pylon route.

I wonder if there's a 13A socket spurred off the "ring" on each pylon so the engineers can charge their phones

 

[JohnW2]

I was told the design was originally based on HV ring mains such that one section of the ring could be isolated for maintenance without losing supply to anyone.

That's a variant of what I thought (and wrote). Hence I think your fears about "blacking out a town or small city" were unfounded, weren't they? Howver, I did think that, apart from'rings', there were also some spider's-web-like features of the HV network, to provide further redundancy.

Kind Regards, John

 

[bernardgreen]

A lot of the live line working is in the USA where a town can be totally dependent on one feeder route from a nearby node on the power grid.

 

[JohnW2]

A lot of the live line working is in the USA where a town can be totally dependent on one feeder route from a nearby node on the power grid.

Quite possibly. I know very little about the US electricity distribution system and was, as you will realise, talking specifically about the UK National Grid.

Kind Regards, John

 

[securespark]

I wonder if there's a 13A socket spurred off the "ring" on each pylon so the engineers can charge their phones

Or brew up...

Come to think of it, they just need to hang a PEEK kettle off the lines and it will boil wirelessly!

 

[bernardgreen]

Field of glowing tubes..
http://www.bris.ac.uk/changingperspectives/projects/field/

 

[Lectrician]

Most HV distribution is designed with redundancy in mind. There are some spurs in rural areas. You can have 11kv rings running from a 33kv substation, and also an 11kv ring starting at one 33kv and ending at another. Switching is done to isolate sections of cable to work on, add, move etc. The switching is often done in phase, back feeding from elsewhere before killing the initial feed, leaving supplies fully on at all times. The 11kv rings are not actually usually powered from two ends all the time, only during switching.