[tigerBL00D]

I don't think the difference between the power grid and the power utility is clear to most people. The grid is a statewide wholesale electricity distribution network which consists of generators, substations and high voltage long distance transmission lines. The utility is in charge of taking the power from the grid and delivering 110/220V to end customers, i.e. homes and businesses. This hurricane caused a lot of damage to the utility infrastructure. The grid performed fine.

Some people bring up the storm Ian in 2021. Winter storms are fundamentally different disasters. Cold snaps drive up local electricity demand sharply and this is the kind of thing that can stress the grid.

[quickthrowman]

> The utility is in charge of taking the power from the grid and delivering 110/220V to end customers, i.e. homes and businesses.

Sorry to be pedantic, but most US businesses have 208/120V or 480/277V three-phase electrical services. There are some old existing 240/120V three-phase high-leg delta (aka bastard leg) delta services. [0] Delta-wye transformers are the most common type today, that’s where you get the 208/120 and 480/277 services from. [1]

Larger commercial/industrial customers can have their own medium/high voltage substations and premises wiring/distribution.

Medium voltage is 2.4kV to 70kV with 4160V and 13800V being the most common for commercial/industrial applications. High voltage is roughly 100kV to 1mV.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-leg_delta

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta-wye_transformer

[jsjohnst]

> Sorry to be pedantic, but most US businesses have 208/120V or 480/277V three-phase electrical services.

Sorry to be pedantic, but define “business”. As someone who’s worked on many job sites doing commercial electrical work, it’s not as common as you imply that there’s three phase service running to a business. Do a lot have it, yes, most, no. Literally everything else you said I’m aligned with.

[quickthrowman]

I sell and run commercial electrical work and I can think of maybe a handful of places I’ve sent electricians that have a single phase service. I live in a large metro area of 4M people, virtually every commercial building over 4-5k sq ft has a three-phase service where I live. Banks, fast food restaurants, gas stations, etc.

What sorts of commercial projects have you worked on that don’t have three phase electrical that are located on commercial or industrial zoned property? Virtually every single multitenant office or light commercial building I’ve ever been in has three-phase.

I guess you could count Jeff’s welding shop in his pole building on his residential property a business, but it’s not commercially zoned property.

I’m skeptical about your claim, I’d wager that more commercial/industrial zoned properties have three-phase than not, based on what I’ve seen across hundreds of customers.

Then again, there’s a lot of small business commercial stuff I ignore because I’m at a union shop and we can’t compete with a one man electrical van when it comes to wiring up a 1500 sq ft nail salon or whatever, there’s no money in that market anyways.

[jsjohnst]

> Then again, there’s a lot of small business commercial stuff I ignore because I’m at a union shop and we can’t compete with a one man electrical van when it comes to wiring up a 1500 sq ft nail salon or whatever, there’s no money in that market anyways.

Ding ding ding... so are they businesses or not? I didn't comment on whether you could make money as an electrician on them, but to imply the hundreds of thousands of businesses like what you just described above aren't _businesses_ especially considering they are on commercially zoned property is just silly.

[brianwawok]

Basically just factories yah? And like large hotels. Your random strip mall business is very happy with a standard 200 amp 240V service.

[jsjohnst]

It's more than just factories and large hotels by far, but still not "most" businesses (which implies greater than 50%).

[gunapologist99]

> Sorry to be pedantic

Why apologize. You're in the right place for pedantry ;)

[fuzzfactor]

In Houston the problems appear to be due to deregulation of the previous HL&P monopoly. If you saw it happen, it was a slow-motion dumpster fire.

I could say a lot more about that later, but the dereg process took so long and was so transparent about what was going to happen (over the course of multiple terms of elected officials and lobbyists), that the split-up into separate corporations was completely gamed before it ever went into effect.

In hindsight you would have to say that the entire purpose of deregulation here was to make it possible to extract more wealth from the same assets and ratepayers than it ever would have been legal before.

Carla was a disaster in the 1960's and by the late '70's the monopoly was still trimming trees and hauling away megatons of branches like nobody has ever seen in recent years. Protecting one of their most valuable assets, the distribution lines themselves. The Texas Public Utility Commission functionally required the power companies to work in favor of the citizens in a way that was completely lost after dereg.

That's when the lines were spun off into a corporation known as Centerpoint, virtually gifted assets to them from the public good, for them to operate as a post-monopoly middleman.

The generator companies and wholesalers are upstream, and the retailers are who ratepayers interact with so it's not designed to be only one middleman. Even though there's now "competition" that did not exist previously.

Centerpoint just transmits the power, so the ratepayer and generator regulations don't apply to the corporation that owns the transmission assets since dereg.

Centerpoint says Beryl is the worst storm they have endured, well Alicia was a direct hit but that was before Centerpoint existed. Yes the bulk of the assets were in lots better shape back then, they were regulated like a single-point-of-failure common-good monopoly should be.