Experimental streetlight switch-off

Sun 6 Dec 2009, 17:30

That would be some hefty battery pack given that most houses are drawing at least 3kw/hr at any given point of the day and don't even think of turning on the oven one would be looking at something like 75kw/h - anyone remember how to turn that into amp hours? My O level physics has evaporated from my memory alas. And then there is the maintenance hassle and rapid wear out of lead acid batteries so one would be better off buying a container full of Nickel Iron "Edison" batteries which are nigh on indestructible but have a highish internal discharge rate and some other niggles ...and expensive due to small production runs for specialist services ... but the maintenance ease outweighs that for a lot of even off grid domestic applications over a 20 or 30 year system period so people are exploring these old batteries again as a viable option. I know of a stack running signalling on the south coast RW that have been there since 1909 and are still going strong! So there we have it: 2 or 3 windmills up the Ditchley Rd owned cooperatively by the estate and Charlbury people like they do it in Denmark (so we all have a stake and a share of profits) and a huge stack of NiFe batteries with enough oomph to run the town for an hour or so. Smartmeters would be able to shut down large consumption devices from the meter leaving one with lighting and the central heating pump and a TV and computer or two.

Dream on. Why CAN'T the English cooperate with community projects the way that the Scandinavians have been setting things up for the last 35 or more years? But would be nice to have a town not dependent upon the grid for everything and a share of the tarrif on a Feed In Tariff system (which the nuclear industry has been lobbying against to kill off things like photovoltaics being installed on peoples' houses like they do in Germany now some 20% of lekky supplies).

Sat 5 Dec 2009, 20:58

As someone whose supply is dependent upon an overhead line from Enstone, I can confirm that we too have experienced a very poor service in November 2009, despite some major works a few years ago that was supposed according to S&SE to give us a more reliable supply.

it would be interesting to hear a factual explanation from S&SE devoid of spin, PR and marketing speak.

Fri 4 Dec 2009, 18:43

Perhaps Southern Electric should distribute them to customers FOC as a goodwill gesture after the recent problems!

Fri 4 Dec 2009, 17:08

I'm told you can buy a simple power storage device which plugs into a socket and stores enough power for you to use it for 24 hours in the event of a powercut. Maybe everybody should buy themselves one (or more) of these?

Unfortunately I don't remember the name of it, but I'm sure a search of Google would discover it.

Fri 4 Dec 2009, 10:42

Why? Have you got shares in them Chris?!

Fri 4 Dec 2009, 09:02

schools cdertainly ought to have a phone(s) that don't require a separate power supply to continue to work - although obviously their answerphone won't work in a power cut.

You can still by 'bog-standard' phones that work using the phone jacks power supply, and I suggest weveryone invests in one for when any power cut happens.

Thu 3 Dec 2009, 22:47

There was a powercut of over 3 hours long in our part of Charlbury in the summer, which made both working and communication near impossible from around 9:30 until after 1pm. This was especially difficult because we were waiting for an urgent phone call from the hospital, who only had our landline number (the landline phone does not work without power...). We couldn't phone school either in relation to this, as they only have a landline number. And both school and nursery had to serve the children a cold meal for lunch that day...Fortunately nobody needed the heating! I accept that technology isn't infallible, and emergencies will happen. But not several times in one week, not even several times in a year, and not for hours at a time if it's not some idiot that cut through a bunch of cables. A bit more priority to the needs of 'simple' customers would be much appreciated.

Thu 3 Dec 2009, 22:22

Thanks for your apology Roger, which I am happy to accept. The last lengthy powercut before the current batch? There was one of more than an hour in early September (I think). It was right in the middle of the day when I was working on the computer and hence I couldn't do anything for a long time. That's why I get so annoyed about powercuts: every time they take place during the day, I can't work at all and hence lose money. I hate being so dependent on computers but that's the way of the world I'm afraid. If the cuts keep happening this winter I will be writing to Southern Electric seeking an explanation.

Thu 3 Dec 2009, 11:49

Derek ,i apologise if you felt i made a personal attack on you it was not my intention but the situation you and others specify cannot be possible for the majority of consumers .I have no trumpet to blow for southern electric as an employer or rather ex employee but i do know how the system works having worked for them for a long time.Before this latest phase of power cuts just spare a little time to remember when the last power failure was ,i can,t.

Thu 3 Dec 2009, 11:38

For the 10 years I worked in Charlbury but lived in Finstock, I was glad that Charlbury had so many fewer power cuts than Finstock. So you can imagine what Finstock is like. Especially when your neighbour's burglar alarm goes off in the middle of the night every time, and he's often away.

How widespread is the problem? Is anyone from Chadlington, Enstone or Stonesfield reading this, for instance?

Thu 3 Dec 2009, 09:36

Request that he Town Council organise a meeting between SE reps & the townsfolk to provide reasons / answers....they will attend in circumstances like these.

Wed 2 Dec 2009, 22:08

Roger whilst bowing to your experience of the multivarious causes of "systems failure" and though remembering the groundbreaking book "Normal Accidents" of 1980 (Basic Books 1980 a must read for any technician) there do seem to be an excessive incidence of failures in this part of the world. One wonders about redundancy and backup in the overall wiring systems - are we too dependent upon one supply route and should we be pressing for a secondary or tertiary link and should seek more subdivision within the town as a whole? This is a serious query and one which would impact upon profit ratios to correct if we are too mono-specific to cut costs and increase shareholder yields. We are of course not shareholders but STAKEHOLDERS. I lost a significant amount of data that day as I was doing an incremental rsync on a computer system, thankfully not fatally.

Wed 2 Dec 2009, 22:04

Roger - I don't understand why you have to personalize the issue (e.g. by calling me "silly") and fly off the handle. Nothing in my earlier post could possibly be construed as a personal attack on you. I was having a go at a corporate philosophy that puts personal greed before customer satisfaction, that was all.

I accept that it is not possible to predict when a particular fuse will blow and that extreme weather conditions are obviously unavoidable. However, Monday's powercut occurred when it was dry, sunny and calm so bad weather would not appear to have been the cause. If maintenance work in Fawler is to blame then Southern Electric could have written to customers to forewarn them that this work was going to take place.

As Diana said, we as consumers pay a great deal for our electricity supply and at the moment we are not getting value for money. We are not living in the 1950s, it is almost 2010, and a reliable power supply is surely not too much to ask for in this day and age. Pensioners shouldn't have to warm their hands around a candle in the middle of winter just because the power-supply infrastructure is inadequately maintained.

Wed 2 Dec 2009, 16:25

Katie thank goodness for someone who is tolerant to the situation unlike it seems some of the residents elsewhere .To replace all the fuses that could fail or to ensure that trees do not fall on power lines or that cables do not get any water in them that causes them to explode or to stop all digging so that no one damages a cable is not within anybodys remit even the good lord could work within those parameters.Tolerance is whats needed and some people do not seem to have much .

Wed 2 Dec 2009, 15:59

I'm in Fawler and we are having lot's of power cuts too. Last Friday we had an emergency 3 hour power cut, because Southern Electric had detected a major underground fault somewhere near us. They had to turn off the power so that they could ssafely identify the location. There have been lots of SE vehicles around, so I think they are close to sorting it out now. I guess this is probably the cause of your power interruptions too.

Wed 2 Dec 2009, 14:51

Hear hear!

Wed 2 Dec 2009, 12:32

I'm not so sure what is difficult to predict about rain and cold in November? The conditions for power delivery in an area like Charlbury are within predictable parameters (temperature, humidity, demand) and I think it is a reasonable expectation that the infrastructure should be designed and build to accomodate this. People are very dependent on electricity supply, pay lots of money for it, and power cuts are highly disruptive. Having the odd very short one maybe acceptable, but a series of long power cuts really is not.

Wed 2 Dec 2009, 11:13

Derek if you want sensible arguements and debate then fine but being silly about things that no one can predict is just not worth doing .

Tue 1 Dec 2009, 12:27

Can I just say that my street only has electric and everytime the power goes off for some time it completly messes up the storage heaters. We have a few elderly people in the street who need heating at this time of year and I know how cold I get so can't image how they feel.

Tue 1 Dec 2009, 12:15

Ah, I see, it's all become clear now. This is just the old story of big corporations putting profit for their shareholders ahead of providing a decent service for their customers, i.e. the people who pay their wages, by refusing to properly maintain their infrastructure. See also First Great Western, Network Rail, Thames Water, British Gas, repeat ad nauseum.

Mon 30 Nov 2009, 17:48

Well Derek as someone who worked on outages as you put it for more years than i care to remember i can tell you that the fuses that control the cables that supply houses do blow just as they used to in houses before circuit breakers .Everything has a breaking point and even slightly colder weather can impose immense pressure on the fuses at sub stations .

Mon 30 Nov 2009, 16:40

You've contradicted yourself there Roger: you can't say that powercuts are no-one's fault and then in the same sentence blame them on the public for using too much electricity!

In my experience, powercuts are often the fault of incompetent contractors slicing through cables whilst digging up the road, etc. For example, when I was living in Oxford about 10 years ago I experienced frequent power outages whilst the road was up so that cable TV could be installed. A coincidence? I think not.

If you are saying that we as consumers should be doing more to minimize our use of eelctricity then I, as an environmentalist, would support you. However, better education is needed so that people learn to turn off lights in untenanted rooms, switch off the kettle at the socket when they go on holiday, etc. It would be much easier to plan around powercuts though if they were imposed in advance at prespecfied times, say 3-5 am every day, rather than the current infuriating practice of apparently random outages. Why should there be unprecedented demand for electricity in Charlbury at 10.15 am on a not unseasonally cold Monday in November - any ideas?

Mon 30 Nov 2009, 12:43

As a member of staff with S.E for over thirty years i can tell you that it is no ones fault that power cuts occur ,but very often increased demand on the system by the public that strains the system to breaking point .

Mon 30 Nov 2009, 11:29

What the $**%?@** is going on with the power supply this autumn? Another powercut in Charlbury this morning, from 10.15 to 11.00 am. Are Southern Electric responsible? If so, I think they should compensate me for lost earnings!

Fri 27 Nov 2009, 09:50

Call the Power Loss phone number of your local supplier - they'll always tell you what the problem is & how long it'll take to fix. All you need to quote is your Postcode & you can call & ask after the event too.

Fri 27 Nov 2009, 00:40

Is there any way of finding out what caused the problems? We in The Green went off for a while after 3am, came on, went off again after 5, were back on again at 6.40 or so hence luckier than some. I'm aware of a power cut happening at least weekly here - why the frequency of events? Enough to drive even a home user to a UPS.

Thu 26 Nov 2009, 10:05

Doubly annoying as I get hauled into the office by the alarm company when I should be all roasty-toasty in my bed. Plus it means our overnight backups have failed two nights in a row.

Thu 26 Nov 2009, 09:50

By my reckoning that's three powercuts in just over 24 hours (including a very short one yesterday lunchtime that was still long enough to knock out my computer). Have I "done a Sam Tyler" (i.e. time-travelled back to the mid-1970s)? I'm experiencing intense whiffs of nostalgia and will soon be forced to start stockpiling candles and brushing up my Denis Healey impression ("Take a bath in the dark", etc.). The DVD recorder and alarm clock/radio are now steadfastly refusing to work at all thanks to the inordinate length of the breaks in the electricity supply. I know it's been windy lately but this is Charlbury, not Cockermouth! Constant power outages are damned annoying, especially if you work on a computer from home! Does anyone know who or what's behind it all?

Thu 26 Nov 2009, 08:59

Some experiment! That's two nights running...

Yes, Malcolm, you can see the Milky Way. I used to gawp at it regularly in Finstock (no street lights there). I'm rather saddened that someone who lives in Charlbury can ask the question. Walk a couple of hundred yards up Ditchley Road or Hundley Way and the sky is yours. Not far to go to catch a glimpse of a few (million?) universes.

Thu 26 Nov 2009, 08:55

'Twas a bit more than just the street lights that were off, and it happened again around 3:30am this morning (Thurs 26/11). At least part of Charlbury was getting up in the dark (if they were getting up at all with the clock radios off).

Wed 25 Nov 2009, 20:33

Being serious for half a minute is Charlbury far enough away from light pollution to see the Milky Way if the streetlights are off not that the viewing conditions were very suitable last night for stargazing... I think it is 20 or more years since I saw the stars properly on a visit back "home" to Canada in some remote region of Nova Scotia and can hardly remember what an unlit sky looks like nor how many stars there seem to be compared to "normal". My God its full of stars... ;)

Wed 25 Nov 2009, 19:41

Thats called a power cut derek.LOL

Wed 25 Nov 2009, 19:03

I'd love to hear more about whether the lights are going to be switched off in the wee hours of night- in the whole of Charlbury? Does anyone have any updates? Delighted to see these adverts on TV about the police doing more on the beat!

Wed 25 Nov 2009, 13:06

Can I just be the first to congratulate all those responsible for last night's experimental deactivation of the streetlights in Dancers Hill? On a wild, windy, midweek night in late November it was unlikely that many people would be out and about so what a good idea to impose a blackout for an hour or so in the small hours to demonstrate what it will be like in future. It weren't half dark Mum!