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DesideriScuri -> RE: Detroit Blackout Used To "Send A Strong Message" (9/18/2013 7:05:19 AM)
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ORIGINAL: Zonie63
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ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri
It's not that they don't know power usage is going to vary with the seasons. But, on a day-to-day basis, it can vary widely. Last week, it was in the upper 90's in Toledo, Ohio ('bout an hour South of Detroit) on Monday and Tuesday. It was in the upper 70's and low 80's the preceding week and the high the following Friday was mid 60's. It's spikes like that that can cause fluctuations.
Yeah, that makes sense. Down here, it's a pretty safe bet that the weather is going to be sunny and hot. Even if it's during the rainy season, people still use their A/C, since it doesn't get that much cooler, but the humidity is higher. Swamp coolers don't work well in humid weather, even though they're easier on the electric bill.
I also notice that in many of those older cities back east, they use box air conditioning units in their windows, sometimes two or three per apartment. Are those more energy efficient than central A/C units? Most of the houses and apartments here have central A/C in one form or another, so the box units are not very widely used around here. I was in a place that had one, and I remember it had to work harder to cool a smaller area, and it never really did a good job yet was running constantly.
In general, central air will be better at cooling a house than window units. The cost for installing central air into an existing home may or may not make central air economically feasible. Lots of homes are really fucking old, compared to those out West. Not all houses have ductwork, making installing central air an expensive upgrade. The first house I owned had hot water radiators for heat. It would have cost over $15k to have ductwork installed. That was on top of what it would have cost to install a furnace and A/C unit. There was another option, at a reduced cost, that used flexible tubing to get the conditioned air to the various rooms of the house. The idea was that this tubing could be "fished" through the walls from above, so there would be no need to tear into the walls of the house, like you would to install ducting. I failed to see how that would be helpful. The A/C unit would be located in the attic. I have no idea how efficient that would have been, as attics would need upgrades in their venting, and tend to be hot anyway (reducing the efficiency of transferring heat from the refrigerant to the outside air). More recently, there is the "ductless mini-split" systems coming out. The idea with those is that there is an outdoor unit, like all A/C systems, but the refrigerant is carried in copper tubing to each room, individually. Indoor units in each room control the room's condition. All the mini-split systems I've read about can also be used to heat to some extent (not sure if that's a characteristic of all mini-split systems or not).
Depending on the climate you're in and the overall ventilation strategies you have in place, it's possible that adding a window unit in the most important room would still be more economical than central air. There are people in NW Ohio that have no A/C at all. No central air, and no window units. That's brutal at times.
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On the other hand, wintertime is when our temperatures start to fluctuate and become somewhat unpredictable for the long term, although most people here use natural gas for heat, so it doesn't really hit the electric company if there's a sudden increase in demand. The gas company seems to be able to supply the area. Weren't there gas shortages back there this past winter?
I believe the gas shortages were driven, in part, by power companies also using natural gas to generate electricity. Spiking demand for gas during cold snaps requires a lot more gas for heating, but there will also be a spike in electrical usage (not all furnaces are gas) and reliance on nat. gas for electricity generation only stresses the supply system more. Regardless of how much nat. gas is being produced nowadays, you'll have issues if you don't have large enough supply infrastructure to meet demand.
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It just so happened that the day they turned off power was one of those 90+ degree days (yes, I know the weather forecasters were all over the coming heat wave). I don't know all the details of why the City decided to force a reduction in electricity use. It could have something to do with reducing the cost as it's going through bankruptcy?
I suppose it's possible. It's my understanding that electric companies buy and sell surplus electricity from each other, but presumably those costs would be passed on to the customer. Was this a case of private customers using too much electricity or was it in public buildings where the costs would be paid by the taxpayers? Maybe they should have just cut the electricity to the public buildings and left the private customers' electricity turned on. If they're paying their own electric bill, that's one thing, but if the taxpayers are footing the bill and the government is trying to save money, then that might make more sense than just cutting everybody off.
Outside of the obvious political rantings, Joether's post seems to point towards the system being of declining quality with the heat wave adding stress to the system that caused the bulk of the issue. The article stated that the City of Detroit ran the public utilities, but had worked out a deal to turn that over to DTE Energy, but the transfer hadn't happened yet.
It seems like the decision to cut power to various public buildings was made to protect the system, and to send a message. That message should be loud and clear: Kevin Orr (the Emergency Manager) is a mini-tyrant. The buildings involved were deemed to not have responded to his missive (to reduce their A/C usage) quick enough, so he just cut power. I hope there will be some sort of consequences for his actions.
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Bad management and poor leadership has brought Detroit to where it is today. I'm not saying the decision to cut power was right, or even that it wasn't a terrible decision. We agree on that. I'm sure there was a line of reasoning (however misguided) that allowed for axing the service. Not alerting those who were going to be impacted is a terrible decision, imo. I believe in CA, when there were going to be rolling black/brown-outs, they were announced in advance, so you could prepare.
I remember when that occurred, although I don't recall what the reason was for that. That problem didn't really affect us here in AZ.
I think bad management and poor leadership has been a nationwide problem, existent at the state and federal level as much as the municipal level. Municipal governments tend to be something like the "bastard step child" among the overall hierarchy of governments in this country. They're in a rather odd spot on the political food chain, since they're below the state and federal governments but they're also the closest to their constituents. They're also more vulnerable economically, since cities are in fierce competition with each other to attract business and industry. Cities which are dependent upon military bases always go into panic mode whenever there's talk of base closures.
IIRC, the problem in CA that spawned the rolling blackouts was an extended heat wave and not enough power production capacity to meet the demand. I think the explanation of the capacity issue was blamed on CA's government, but I have no idea what the truth of the matter was.
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I don't know what the future holds for cities like Detroit. Maybe they could make it into a giant theme park, with free admission to get in, but you have to pay to get out. [;)]
LMAO!!
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