On Wed, 24 Apr 2019 20:15:34 -0700 (PDT), Its Me
wrote:

On Tuesday, April 23, 2019 at 11:16:47 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 18:36:36 -0700 (PDT), Its Me
wrote:

On Tuesday, April 23, 2019 at 8:41:50 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 17:28:35 -0400,
wrote:

On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 17:01:36 -0400, wrote:

On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 16:08:55 -0400,
wrote:

On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 14:11:32 -0400, wrote:

They are assuming coal fired electric plants but I agree all electric
cars do is move the smoke stack down the road a ways.

===

In my opinion that's an over simplification. For one it ignores the
fact that stationary, large-scale power plants are much more efficient
than the average internal combusion engine used in vehicles. Secondly,
the charging is usually done at off peak hours when there is typically
excess grid capacity. Last but not least, the trend is pointing in
the direction of renewable energy such as wind and solar. If we live
long enough (doubtful), we might even see clean nuclear fusion some
day. As an additional benefit, electric cars have done quite a bit to
advance the state-of-the-art for light weight, high efficiency
batteries. Those gains will eventually prove useful for the storage
of wind and solar energy.
That all assumes a clean power plant in the first place. The article
was talking about coal plants and we still have plenty of them.
Your solar power is not going to do much if the cars are charged at
night.


===

At least in this country, coal plants are rapidly going away.

Solar power at night is not going to happen of course. New battery
technology, and other energy storage devices, will eventually help
with that issue however. If every south facing roof in Florida was
covered with high efficiency solar panels, there would be plenty of
energy to spare for battery charging. I think that will eventually
happen as the price of solar panels steadily decreases.

My problem is drilling holes in a roof that isn't leaking now. My
roofer neighbor says solar is great for his business. I also only have
about 3kw worth of south facing roof.
Solar is getting a lot cheaper tho. I was looking the other day and
there are lots of collectors in the 75 cents a watt neighborhood.
I wonder how FPL would feel if I built an array on their property ;-)

Running those cables to/from that array near their power lines may be the biggest problem.You may create a transformer that neither of you want.

That is way overstated. I have tried to scavenge power from those
lines for 35 years with absolutely zero success. If you believe what
you see on you tube I should be able to hold an F40 tube in the air
and have it light up ... nope. I should be able to string a wire
parallel to the line and generate something ... nope.
Coil of wire ... nope.
I really wanted a light in my boat house under those lines without
stringing another wire but no joy.
If you really look at these lines it is easy to see why. They are a
twisted triplex. They just have a twist about every half mile or so
but that is still way smaller than the wave length. (roughly from here
to California)

Besides, my wires would be running at 90 degrees to the power line and
underground.

You aren't trying hard enough.

It would take a fairly long run parallel to those lines to get any induced power. That a *very* inefficient transformer.

The twist has nothing to do with it. It's not RF (wavelength) they are concerned with, it's a expanding and collapsing magnetic field at 60hz. Twisted pair is used primarily to greatly reduce *induced* interference, not to reduce radiated interference. Those conductors you are seeing aren't twisted pairs, but rather an efficient way to run a conductor of a specific CMA. Easier and more efficient to run a lazy spiral of three smaller conductors sharing the load than to run one that is their equal. That doesn't change their radiated magnetic footprint.

You still haven't explained why they twist them. It would be easier to
just run them straight but it is obvious that they roll them about
every half mile.
I also believe the fields from 3 phases tend to cancel each other out.
If I put my clamp on ammeter around a cable carrying the current down
and back, I get zero and that is a lot closer coupled transformer than
anything I could do by stringing a wire along the ground.

You're right about the 90 degree rule. I'd be more worried about the induced noise in the panels and their conductors, which may not be at 90 degrees.

Since the whole grid is in sync, what "noise"? I lived my whole
computer career looking for noise and for the most part when we found
the enemy, it was us, RF from our switching power supplies (along with
some other PS schemes that were even noisier).

On Wednesday, April 24, 2019 at 11:35:11 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Wed, 24 Apr 2019 20:15:34 -0700 (PDT), Its Me
wrote:

On Tuesday, April 23, 2019 at 11:16:47 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 18:36:36 -0700 (PDT), Its Me
wrote:

On Tuesday, April 23, 2019 at 8:41:50 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 17:28:35 -0400,
wrote:

On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 17:01:36 -0400, wrote:

On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 16:08:55 -0400,
wrote:

On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 14:11:32 -0400, wrote:

They are assuming coal fired electric plants but I agree all electric
cars do is move the smoke stack down the road a ways.

===

In my opinion that's an over simplification. For one it ignores the
fact that stationary, large-scale power plants are much more efficient
than the average internal combusion engine used in vehicles. Secondly,
the charging is usually done at off peak hours when there is typically
excess grid capacity. Last but not least, the trend is pointing in
the direction of renewable energy such as wind and solar. If we live
long enough (doubtful), we might even see clean nuclear fusion some
day. As an additional benefit, electric cars have done quite a bit to
advance the state-of-the-art for light weight, high efficiency
batteries. Those gains will eventually prove useful for the storage
of wind and solar energy.
That all assumes a clean power plant in the first place. The article
was talking about coal plants and we still have plenty of them.
Your solar power is not going to do much if the cars are charged at
night.


===

At least in this country, coal plants are rapidly going away.

Solar power at night is not going to happen of course. New battery
technology, and other energy storage devices, will eventually help
with that issue however. If every south facing roof in Florida was
covered with high efficiency solar panels, there would be plenty of
energy to spare for battery charging. I think that will eventually
happen as the price of solar panels steadily decreases.

My problem is drilling holes in a roof that isn't leaking now. My
roofer neighbor says solar is great for his business. I also only have
about 3kw worth of south facing roof.
Solar is getting a lot cheaper tho. I was looking the other day and
there are lots of collectors in the 75 cents a watt neighborhood.
I wonder how FPL would feel if I built an array on their property ;-)

Running those cables to/from that array near their power lines may be the biggest problem.You may create a transformer that neither of you want.

That is way overstated. I have tried to scavenge power from those
lines for 35 years with absolutely zero success. If you believe what
you see on you tube I should be able to hold an F40 tube in the air
and have it light up ... nope. I should be able to string a wire
parallel to the line and generate something ... nope.
Coil of wire ... nope.
I really wanted a light in my boat house under those lines without
stringing another wire but no joy.
If you really look at these lines it is easy to see why. They are a
twisted triplex. They just have a twist about every half mile or so
but that is still way smaller than the wave length. (roughly from here
to California)

Besides, my wires would be running at 90 degrees to the power line and
underground.

You aren't trying hard enough.

It would take a fairly long run parallel to those lines to get any induced power. That a *very* inefficient transformer.

The twist has nothing to do with it. It's not RF (wavelength) they are concerned with, it's a expanding and collapsing magnetic field at 60hz. Twisted pair is used primarily to greatly reduce *induced* interference, not to reduce radiated interference. Those conductors you are seeing aren't twisted pairs, but rather an efficient way to run a conductor of a specific CMA. Easier and more efficient to run a lazy spiral of three smaller conductors sharing the load than to run one that is their equal. That doesn't change their radiated magnetic footprint.

You still haven't explained why they twist them. It would be easier to
just run them straight but it is obvious that they roll them about
every half mile.
I also believe the fields from 3 phases tend to cancel each other out.
If I put my clamp on ammeter around a cable carrying the current down
and back, I get zero and that is a lot closer coupled transformer than
anything I could do by stringing a wire along the ground.

You're right about the 90 degree rule. I'd be more worried about the induced noise in the panels and their conductors, which may not be at 90 degrees.

Since the whole grid is in sync, what "noise"? I lived my whole
computer career looking for noise and for the most part when we found
the enemy, it was us, RF from our switching power supplies (along with
some other PS schemes that were even noisier).

Since the twist is not electrical in nature (that I can imagine), I suspect the reason is mechanical. If the three conductors weren't twisted in some way, they'd just flop around.

Those solar panels aren't part of the grid, and have no "sync". Sunlight isn't 60 Hz.

On Thu, 25 Apr 2019 05:52:18 -0700 (PDT), Its Me
wrote:

On Wednesday, April 24, 2019 at 11:35:11 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Wed, 24 Apr 2019 20:15:34 -0700 (PDT), Its Me
wrote:

On Tuesday, April 23, 2019 at 11:16:47 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 18:36:36 -0700 (PDT), Its Me
wrote:

On Tuesday, April 23, 2019 at 8:41:50 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 17:28:35 -0400,
wrote:

On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 17:01:36 -0400, wrote:

On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 16:08:55 -0400,
wrote:

On Tue, 23 Apr 2019 14:11:32 -0400, wrote:

They are assuming coal fired electric plants but I agree all electric
cars do is move the smoke stack down the road a ways.

===

In my opinion that's an over simplification. For one it ignores the
fact that stationary, large-scale power plants are much more efficient
than the average internal combusion engine used in vehicles. Secondly,
the charging is usually done at off peak hours when there is typically
excess grid capacity. Last but not least, the trend is pointing in
the direction of renewable energy such as wind and solar. If we live
long enough (doubtful), we might even see clean nuclear fusion some
day. As an additional benefit, electric cars have done quite a bit to
advance the state-of-the-art for light weight, high efficiency
batteries. Those gains will eventually prove useful for the storage
of wind and solar energy.
That all assumes a clean power plant in the first place. The article
was talking about coal plants and we still have plenty of them.
Your solar power is not going to do much if the cars are charged at
night.


===

At least in this country, coal plants are rapidly going away.

Solar power at night is not going to happen of course. New battery
technology, and other energy storage devices, will eventually help
with that issue however. If every south facing roof in Florida was
covered with high efficiency solar panels, there would be plenty of
energy to spare for battery charging. I think that will eventually
happen as the price of solar panels steadily decreases.

My problem is drilling holes in a roof that isn't leaking now. My
roofer neighbor says solar is great for his business. I also only have
about 3kw worth of south facing roof.
Solar is getting a lot cheaper tho. I was looking the other day and
there are lots of collectors in the 75 cents a watt neighborhood.
I wonder how FPL would feel if I built an array on their property ;-)

Running those cables to/from that array near their power lines may be the biggest problem.You may create a transformer that neither of you want.

That is way overstated. I have tried to scavenge power from those
lines for 35 years with absolutely zero success. If you believe what
you see on you tube I should be able to hold an F40 tube in the air
and have it light up ... nope. I should be able to string a wire
parallel to the line and generate something ... nope.
Coil of wire ... nope.
I really wanted a light in my boat house under those lines without
stringing another wire but no joy.
If you really look at these lines it is easy to see why. They are a
twisted triplex. They just have a twist about every half mile or so
but that is still way smaller than the wave length. (roughly from here
to California)

Besides, my wires would be running at 90 degrees to the power line and
underground.

You aren't trying hard enough.

It would take a fairly long run parallel to those lines to get any induced power. That a *very* inefficient transformer.

The twist has nothing to do with it. It's not RF (wavelength) they are concerned with, it's a expanding and collapsing magnetic field at 60hz. Twisted pair is used primarily to greatly reduce *induced* interference, not to reduce radiated interference. Those conductors you are seeing aren't twisted pairs, but rather an efficient way to run a conductor of a specific CMA. Easier and more efficient to run a lazy spiral of three smaller conductors sharing the load than to run one that is their equal. That doesn't change their radiated magnetic footprint.

You still haven't explained why they twist them. It would be easier to
just run them straight but it is obvious that they roll them about
every half mile.
I also believe the fields from 3 phases tend to cancel each other out.
If I put my clamp on ammeter around a cable carrying the current down
and back, I get zero and that is a lot closer coupled transformer than
anything I could do by stringing a wire along the ground.

You're right about the 90 degree rule. I'd be more worried about the induced noise in the panels and their conductors, which may not be at 90 degrees.

Since the whole grid is in sync, what "noise"? I lived my whole
computer career looking for noise and for the most part when we found
the enemy, it was us, RF from our switching power supplies (along with
some other PS schemes that were even noisier).

Since the twist is not electrical in nature (that I can imagine), I suspect the reason is mechanical. If the three conductors weren't twisted in some way, they'd just flop around.

"Flop around"? Each conductor is securely attached to insulators.
They are not physically twisted in a bundle, they just get an
electrical twist by having the phases change positions from pole to
pole. They call it transposition. It allows the lines to be balanced.
(Relative inductance to each other and to the environment around them)

Those solar panels aren't part of the grid, and have no "sync". Sunlight isn't 60 Hz.

The inverter will be grid tied so the transport to the house would be
in sync.

On Thursday, April 25, 2019 at 10:02:15 AM UTC-4, wrote:


"Flop around"? Each conductor is securely attached to insulators.
They are not physically twisted in a bundle, they just get an
electrical twist by having the phases change positions from pole to
pole. They call it transposition. It allows the lines to be balanced.
(Relative inductance to each other and to the environment around them)

Oh, I thought you were saying that each *leg* consisted of three twisted conductors. I've never seen that but who knows what FPL might be doing.

Those solar panels aren't part of the grid, and have no "sync". Sunlight isn't 60 Hz.

The inverter will be grid tied so the transport to the house would be
in sync.

Of course, but it wasn't the feed to the house that I was talking about.

On Sat, 27 Apr 2019 09:59:10 -0700 (PDT), Its Me
wrote:

On Thursday, April 25, 2019 at 10:02:15 AM UTC-4, wrote:


"Flop around"? Each conductor is securely attached to insulators.
They are not physically twisted in a bundle, they just get an
electrical twist by having the phases change positions from pole to
pole. They call it transposition. It allows the lines to be balanced.
(Relative inductance to each other and to the environment around them)

Oh, I thought you were saying that each *leg* consisted of three twisted conductors. I've never seen that but who knows what FPL might be doing.

Transmission lines overhead are bare wires. They are twisted strands
but that is just to increase flexibility and skin effect. The twist I
was talking about is how the lines get "transposed" on the poles every
half or so where they all get swapped around


Those solar panels aren't part of the grid, and have no "sync". Sunlight isn't 60 Hz.

The inverter will be grid tied so the transport to the house would be
in sync.

Of course, but it wasn't the feed to the house that I was talking about.

You think there will be some voltage induced into the panels?
I am not seeing that on anything that is terminated in any way. In
this case the panels would be terminated into the inverter and if
there was any 60hz present it would simple be chewed up and spit out
by the inverter anyway. After all it would be "in sync" with the grid
anyway.

On Saturday, April 27, 2019 at 1:44:28 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Sat, 27 Apr 2019 09:59:10 -0700 (PDT), Its Me
wrote:

On Thursday, April 25, 2019 at 10:02:15 AM UTC-4, wrote:


"Flop around"? Each conductor is securely attached to insulators.
They are not physically twisted in a bundle, they just get an
electrical twist by having the phases change positions from pole to
pole. They call it transposition. It allows the lines to be balanced.
(Relative inductance to each other and to the environment around them)

Oh, I thought you were saying that each *leg* consisted of three twisted conductors. I've never seen that but who knows what FPL might be doing.

Transmission lines overhead are bare wires. They are twisted strands
but that is just to increase flexibility and skin effect. The twist I
was talking about is how the lines get "transposed" on the poles every
half or so where they all get swapped around


Those solar panels aren't part of the grid, and have no "sync". Sunlight isn't 60 Hz.

The inverter will be grid tied so the transport to the house would be
in sync.

Of course, but it wasn't the feed to the house that I was talking about.

You think there will be some voltage induced into the panels?
I am not seeing that on anything that is terminated in any way. In
this case the panels would be terminated into the inverter and if
there was any 60hz present it would simple be chewed up and spit out
by the inverter anyway. After all it would be "in sync" with the grid
anyway.

I don't know, I've never played with it, but it can induce some noise. Probably not enough in that situation to do anything at all.

Years ago I installed some comm equipment in a train yard. We had built some interface cards for some comm circuits that was just a 600 ohm twisted pair that ran along the track for miles until it hit a transmitter shack, sometimes with a handset in there to talk back to dispatch. The interface card had a transformer and some audio switching circuits, and was protected by a couple of MOV's rated at 160-180 volts, one for each side of pair going to ground.

When we installed the new equipment and started testing, some of those circuits had a horrible amount of noise and buzzing on them. Doing some troubleshooting with a butt set, I discovered that if our interface card was disconnected, the noise went away. Then I hung an oscilloscope on one side of the pair, then the other. There was a HUGE 60hz component coming in on some of the circuits, in some cases around 200 volts. Since the twisted pair was doing what it does, you didn't hear that on the circuit (when you induce a signal on a twisted pair, the same signal is present on both wires.
Since you only care about the difference in potential between the two wires, the signal stays intact.). It wasn't until our interface card was connected that the MOVs saw that voltage from each wire to ground and turned on, unbalancing the circuit and causing the noise to be audible.

Turns out that the pairs left the yard and were run on power poles, occasionally in some cases dropping down to fence posts on the right-of-way, then back up to the posts. They picked up the induced signal from the power lines and brought it right back to our interface cards. We clipped out the MOVs, and all was good. We had to depend on primary lightning protection to protect the equipment. The MOVs were secondary.

On Sat, 27 Apr 2019 11:21:11 -0700 (PDT), Its Me
wrote:

On Saturday, April 27, 2019 at 1:44:28 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Sat, 27 Apr 2019 09:59:10 -0700 (PDT), Its Me
wrote:

On Thursday, April 25, 2019 at 10:02:15 AM UTC-4, wrote:


"Flop around"? Each conductor is securely attached to insulators.
They are not physically twisted in a bundle, they just get an
electrical twist by having the phases change positions from pole to
pole. They call it transposition. It allows the lines to be balanced.
(Relative inductance to each other and to the environment around them)

Oh, I thought you were saying that each *leg* consisted of three twisted conductors. I've never seen that but who knows what FPL might be doing.

Transmission lines overhead are bare wires. They are twisted strands
but that is just to increase flexibility and skin effect. The twist I
was talking about is how the lines get "transposed" on the poles every
half or so where they all get swapped around


Those solar panels aren't part of the grid, and have no "sync". Sunlight isn't 60 Hz.

The inverter will be grid tied so the transport to the house would be
in sync.

Of course, but it wasn't the feed to the house that I was talking about.

You think there will be some voltage induced into the panels?
I am not seeing that on anything that is terminated in any way. In
this case the panels would be terminated into the inverter and if
there was any 60hz present it would simple be chewed up and spit out
by the inverter anyway. After all it would be "in sync" with the grid
anyway.

I don't know, I've never played with it, but it can induce some noise. Probably not enough in that situation to do anything at all.

Years ago I installed some comm equipment in a train yard. We had built some interface cards for some comm circuits that was just a 600 ohm twisted pair that ran along the track for miles until it hit a transmitter shack, sometimes with a handset in there to talk back to dispatch. The interface card had a transformer and some audio switching circuits, and was protected by a couple of MOV's rated at 160-180 volts, one for each side of pair going to ground.

When we installed the new equipment and started testing, some of those circuits had a horrible amount of noise and buzzing on them. Doing some troubleshooting with a butt set, I discovered that if our interface card was disconnected, the noise went away. Then I hung an oscilloscope on one side of the pair, then the other. There was a HUGE 60hz component coming in on some of the circuits, in some cases around 200 volts. Since the twisted pair was doing what it does, you didn't hear that on the circuit (when you induce a signal on a twisted pair, the same signal is present on both wires.
Since you only care about the difference in potential between the two wires, the signal stays intact.). It wasn't until our interface card was connected that the MOVs saw that voltage from each wire to ground and turned on, unbalancing the circuit and causing the noise to be audible.

Turns out that the pairs left the yard and were run on power poles, occasionally in some cases dropping down to fence posts on the right-of-way, then back up to the posts. They picked up the induced signal from the power lines and brought it right back to our interface cards. We clipped out the MOVs, and all was good. We had to depend on primary lightning protection to protect the equipment. The MOVs were secondary.

More likely you were simply seeing the ground shift induced by using
earth as part of the return path. That is inevitable with wye
distribution, even if you do have a neutral conductor. Current does
not take the path of least resistance, it takes ALL paths. The voltage
drop on distribution lines is imposed on the earth. When we were
investigating blown interface cards at a college campus I found up to
35 volts between "ground" on the various buildings. We found a number
of solutions depending on the topology and geography but some
customers just turned it over to the phone company, using leased phone
lines between buildings that were a hundred yards apart. The other
solution was copper, bonding "grounds" together, usually from machine
frame to machine frame directly. We had to call it a "drain" and use
black wire to avoid NEC problems.