Electric power transmission lines question

walterjay

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The other day they began working on the power lines down the road. After a couple days they completed this array of items. Very curious. What are these?
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transmission line engineer here. hard to tell from picture because of angle and glare, but it appears to be terminators with a transformer to step the voltage down with jacketed underground conductor. likely a feed for a nearby building. the white caps are probably animal protection. now that I've looked closer the devices mounted directly to the cross arm at the top could be meters, and the transformer could be stepping the voltage down to power the computer that is monitoring the signal from the meters. it weird to see that on the line because typically the metering is done at the substation.
 
The square boxes are capacitors for power factor correction.

Looks like they still have some work to do. All the switches or cut outs as my lineman buddies call them are hanging open. There should be a wire running from the top of the cut outs to lines on the very top. Those cut outs have a load break on them them so when you open them under load they don't arc. That's what the flag shaped thing is on them.
 
transmission line engineer here. hard to tell from picture because of angle and glare, but it appears to be terminators with a transformer to step the voltage down with jacketed underground conductor. likely a feed for a nearby building. the white caps are probably animal protection. now that I've looked closer the devices mounted directly to the cross arm at the top could be meters, and the transformer could be stepping the voltage down to power the computer that is monitoring the signal from the meters. it weird to see that on the line because typically the metering is done at the substation.
Those devices sitting on the crossarm are probably Potential Transformers ( PT's ) that are sending a voltage reference to some kind of control that switches the Cap bank in or out as needed . Capacitors are also used for voltage stabilization .
 
Stuff around here that looks like that is automatically/remotely switched power factor correction equipment.
They installed some that look almost exactly like that a mile from my house I pulled up to the crew and asked if it was power factor correction equipment they were installing and their answer was "are you looking for a lineman job?".
 
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The capacitors (rectangular boxes) are sparingly used to correct curreny lag when there are too many induction devices (motors) being powered thereby causing the current to lag (peak occure after) the voltage. As more induction devices are being powered the current lags more. The current lagging the voltage is called the power factor. The real available power decreases if the current lag gets too bad. If the powerfactor is too bad then the capacators are tied in to correct it back to not be as bad. The reason the capacitors are sparingly used is because they are expensive and have a limited number of use hours.
 
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Those devices sitting on the crossarm are probably Potential Transformers ( PT's ) that are sending a voltage reference to some kind of control that switches the Cap bank in or out as needed . Capacitors are also used for voltage stabilization .
they're current transformers (CT) or potential transformers (PT), could be both. in the transmission world I've never seen them on the line. they are always in the station.
 
they're current transformers (CT) or potential transformers (PT), could be both. in the transmission world I've never seen them on the line. they are always in the station.
Since they only seem to " tap" the phase I'm assuming they are PT's . A CT would need an in and an out . :)
 
That's me in the Tyvek suit . 138 kv breaker internal maintenance . Back in the day .
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the current breakers are completely different they are rectangular for lower voltages and cylindrical with pressurized hexafluoride on the high side. we've also started building them more in a shop as a unit setting everything in one piece on site. I just did a tie in for 345kv collector station and its no bigger than an old school typical 138kv station from 30 years ago.
 
the current breakers are completely different they are rectangular for lower voltages and cylindrical with pressurized hexafluoride on the high side. we've also started building them more in a shop as a unit setting everything in one piece on site. I just did a tie in for 345kv collector station and its no bigger than an old school typical 138kv station from 30 years ago.
I retired 7 yrs ago as a substation maintenance foreman . Everything new was SF6 but we still had a ton of old oil breakers . A lot of the distribution breakers were vacuum .
 
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transmission line engineer here. hard to tell from picture because of angle and glare, but it appears to be terminators with a transformer to step the voltage down with jacketed underground conductor. likely a feed for a nearby building. the white caps are probably animal protection. now that I've looked closer the devices mounted directly to the cross arm at the top could be meters, and the transformer could be stepping the voltage down to power the computer that is monitoring the signal from the meters. it weird to see that on the line because typically the metering is done at the substation.
I’m curious what your thoughts are. We have something like this down the road from us with a giant transfer switch. I don’t know the specifics.. only what my retiree neighbor told me who talked to the guys when it was put in.

I assumed they were to step down voltage for the transfer switch’s system. No idea why it has 4+ transformers though.
 
I thought they were capacitors ( the rectangular objects )

view from my house window(through screen)
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