An open memo to the CFE (electrical would be supplier) regarding recent problems
No folks, it's not always happy in paradise, some days, well, some days it's just plain painful.
June 25, 2010
To: Open memo to CFE
From: www.chapalaweather.net
Subject: A solution to our joint problem
Gentlemen,
"We" have a problem and I propose a solution that will save you money (expense) and lower my blood pressure at least 80 points, I feel certain others will join me in seeing the utter simplicity of this, in fact, it's so simple a 5th grader would have the answer if asked, but first a bit of history.
HISTORY: I moved to Riberas and rented a lovely casa nearly 3 years ago and began acclimating to retired life in Mexico. Of immediate concern was the cost of your services which are over 3 times as much per KWH as NOB rates. I began a campaign to minimize my usage in an attempt to get below the DAC rates. All my outside security lights are 5W CFL, I use very little light inside, some are CFL and some are LED, all expensive, but minimal in power consumption. Rather than run the pool 6 hours a day as recommended by the pool maintenance people I cut it to slightly over 3 hours per day and the pump was replaced with a more efficient unit at significant expense to the owner.
I provide a local weather station for residents of the lake and worldwide to anyone interested in Lake Chalapa weather which requires a full time computer link to the Internet. My original computer used 100 watts, I replaced it with one using 40 watts and very recently with a new model using only 26 watts. I purchased several regulators on the advice of long time residents. They have saved my electric equipment many times I'm sure, but not always. One regulator was destroyed and an attached stereo required nearly $1,000 pesos to repair, routers and telephones have a very short life expectancy. I have learned to monitor the power line continuously to guard against brownouts which drop the voltage to 98 volts and overheat refrigerator and water pump motors. And, all these things occur on perfectly normal weather days, when it storms the real problems begin.
I know your people are busy, often I've been nearly run over, or off the road by careening CFE vehicles, so I know you're trying, but gentlemen, you're falling far short of the goal of providing reliable and "clean" electrical service to a growing community, and there is simply no justification for your rate structure based on your service and performance.
PROBLEM(s): Early on the morning of June 23rd one of our usual rainy season storms blew in. It's quite easy to tell, lightening to the east an hour or more in advance of the actual storm, then rumbling thunder which precedes the high winds, followed by driving rain which inevitably causes the power to go out in my section of Riberas. The immediate dark followed a couple of seconds later by a distant explosion tells the story that power will be off for at least 8 hours, often longer. I shut down my beeping UPS regulator and returned to bed.
Again in the early hours of June 24th a similar storm repeated the power outage punctuated by the distant explosion, this time the power did not return until after mid day. The accompanying spikes and/or surges caused significant problems with the weather station and related equipment/software. Currently we average over 4,000 hits per day on the weather site and have ranged as high as 9,500 in a single day, so people do notice - and I notice because after waiting 8+ hours for power to be restored I spent as many hours rebuilding data bases and unscrambling software.
Your earlier attempts at tree trimming apparently did not solve the problem and in fact left a sizable mess on my property which will require me to pay for cleanup and disposal of limbs hacked off and pushed up on the back of my property rather than being hauled to a disposal area, in general lower Riberas looks like a disaster area due to the "trimming".
* Gentlemen, to be brief; I have a significant problem paying confiscatory rates and receiving a poor product on a good day, and no product on many days.
* And you have a problem; the "explosions" I hear are expensive to you in replacing damaged and destroyed gear at your sub station, the costs being passed on to me.
The problem appears to be relatively localized, for instance the other night I could see a yard light not 2 blocks away (which is normal when I lose power) and I have never seen the lights of upper Chula Vista so much as flicker in the 3 years of my residence, my question is; who do they know?
Being relatively localized, this is really a simple problem, you have a distribution transformer at your sub station, wires connect to my meters (which spin like tops at times) - somewhere in between there is a problem and it's hard for me to imagine you can't find it, but that disbelief not withstanding, I have a simple solution that will solve both our problems - at least until you can find and fix the actual problem.
As a point of reference, I have an EE degree, so I have some idea of what can and can't be done and it's not rocket science, I worked as an engineer for NASA at one time and this is relatively simple by comparison.
SOLUTION: As stated, this being the rainy season, storms happen, they don't suddenly appear like magic, they telegraph their arrival hours ahead of time.
So, simply have a designated person available to watch for a storm and as it arrives "SHUT THE POWER OFF" - yes, I said shut it off, take proactive action and before the storm can short out and blowup something, simply shut it off (hint, that's what I do when you brown out my service). After an hour the storm will have passed, turn the power back on, the cost savings to CFE of NOT blowing out transformers etc. I'm sure will be significant.
What do I get out of it? Well, first I don't mind getting up and shutting down the weather station and going back to sleep until 6am when I'll know power will be back on and I can download the battery backup data and continue with a productive day rather than totally wasting 8 hours of my time and putting my refrigerated foods at risk, not to mention the computer equipment. I can shower, open my front gate and live a normal life in this otherwise beautiful place.
I realize it sounds dumb simple, almost too easy, why didn't anyone ever think of it before? - the loss of a hour's power in the predawn hours and no blown CFE equipment? - you be the judge. Until you can actually solve the real problem this IS a solution that will benefit all CFE customers affected and the CFE.
Steve Brown
www.chapalaweather.net
June 25, 2010
To: Open memo to CFE
From: www.chapalaweather.net
Subject: A solution to our joint problem
Gentlemen,
"We" have a problem and I propose a solution that will save you money (expense) and lower my blood pressure at least 80 points, I feel certain others will join me in seeing the utter simplicity of this, in fact, it's so simple a 5th grader would have the answer if asked, but first a bit of history.
HISTORY: I moved to Riberas and rented a lovely casa nearly 3 years ago and began acclimating to retired life in Mexico. Of immediate concern was the cost of your services which are over 3 times as much per KWH as NOB rates. I began a campaign to minimize my usage in an attempt to get below the DAC rates. All my outside security lights are 5W CFL, I use very little light inside, some are CFL and some are LED, all expensive, but minimal in power consumption. Rather than run the pool 6 hours a day as recommended by the pool maintenance people I cut it to slightly over 3 hours per day and the pump was replaced with a more efficient unit at significant expense to the owner.
I provide a local weather station for residents of the lake and worldwide to anyone interested in Lake Chalapa weather which requires a full time computer link to the Internet. My original computer used 100 watts, I replaced it with one using 40 watts and very recently with a new model using only 26 watts. I purchased several regulators on the advice of long time residents. They have saved my electric equipment many times I'm sure, but not always. One regulator was destroyed and an attached stereo required nearly $1,000 pesos to repair, routers and telephones have a very short life expectancy. I have learned to monitor the power line continuously to guard against brownouts which drop the voltage to 98 volts and overheat refrigerator and water pump motors. And, all these things occur on perfectly normal weather days, when it storms the real problems begin.
I know your people are busy, often I've been nearly run over, or off the road by careening CFE vehicles, so I know you're trying, but gentlemen, you're falling far short of the goal of providing reliable and "clean" electrical service to a growing community, and there is simply no justification for your rate structure based on your service and performance.
PROBLEM(s): Early on the morning of June 23rd one of our usual rainy season storms blew in. It's quite easy to tell, lightening to the east an hour or more in advance of the actual storm, then rumbling thunder which precedes the high winds, followed by driving rain which inevitably causes the power to go out in my section of Riberas. The immediate dark followed a couple of seconds later by a distant explosion tells the story that power will be off for at least 8 hours, often longer. I shut down my beeping UPS regulator and returned to bed.
Again in the early hours of June 24th a similar storm repeated the power outage punctuated by the distant explosion, this time the power did not return until after mid day. The accompanying spikes and/or surges caused significant problems with the weather station and related equipment/software. Currently we average over 4,000 hits per day on the weather site and have ranged as high as 9,500 in a single day, so people do notice - and I notice because after waiting 8+ hours for power to be restored I spent as many hours rebuilding data bases and unscrambling software.
Your earlier attempts at tree trimming apparently did not solve the problem and in fact left a sizable mess on my property which will require me to pay for cleanup and disposal of limbs hacked off and pushed up on the back of my property rather than being hauled to a disposal area, in general lower Riberas looks like a disaster area due to the "trimming".
* Gentlemen, to be brief; I have a significant problem paying confiscatory rates and receiving a poor product on a good day, and no product on many days.
* And you have a problem; the "explosions" I hear are expensive to you in replacing damaged and destroyed gear at your sub station, the costs being passed on to me.
The problem appears to be relatively localized, for instance the other night I could see a yard light not 2 blocks away (which is normal when I lose power) and I have never seen the lights of upper Chula Vista so much as flicker in the 3 years of my residence, my question is; who do they know?
Being relatively localized, this is really a simple problem, you have a distribution transformer at your sub station, wires connect to my meters (which spin like tops at times) - somewhere in between there is a problem and it's hard for me to imagine you can't find it, but that disbelief not withstanding, I have a simple solution that will solve both our problems - at least until you can find and fix the actual problem.
As a point of reference, I have an EE degree, so I have some idea of what can and can't be done and it's not rocket science, I worked as an engineer for NASA at one time and this is relatively simple by comparison.
SOLUTION: As stated, this being the rainy season, storms happen, they don't suddenly appear like magic, they telegraph their arrival hours ahead of time.
So, simply have a designated person available to watch for a storm and as it arrives "SHUT THE POWER OFF" - yes, I said shut it off, take proactive action and before the storm can short out and blowup something, simply shut it off (hint, that's what I do when you brown out my service). After an hour the storm will have passed, turn the power back on, the cost savings to CFE of NOT blowing out transformers etc. I'm sure will be significant.
What do I get out of it? Well, first I don't mind getting up and shutting down the weather station and going back to sleep until 6am when I'll know power will be back on and I can download the battery backup data and continue with a productive day rather than totally wasting 8 hours of my time and putting my refrigerated foods at risk, not to mention the computer equipment. I can shower, open my front gate and live a normal life in this otherwise beautiful place.
I realize it sounds dumb simple, almost too easy, why didn't anyone ever think of it before? - the loss of a hour's power in the predawn hours and no blown CFE equipment? - you be the judge. Until you can actually solve the real problem this IS a solution that will benefit all CFE customers affected and the CFE.
Steve Brown
www.chapalaweather.net
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