this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2024
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A Boring Dystopia

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Protect yourself from our shitty infrastructure for just $22.99 per month! One-time installation fees as low as $49.99 for a limited time only! (lemm.ee)
submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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An email I received from the Detroit Edison (DTE) Energy Company today. The text reads:

How it works:

Installation*: DTE will install the device on your electric meter in less than 30 minutes. No need to schedule an appointment or be at home. Your home is protected as soon as the device is installed by our technicians.

Protection and Warranties: The warranty coverage provides $5,000 per event for appliances and $1,000 per event for electronics to repair or replace your household items in the event the device fails to protect against damaging surges.

Stay Connected: Your surge device comes with a FREE 20-foot power cable. In the event of a power outage, you can connect your generator to the surge device with the power cable to power your home up to the generator’s capacity. Easy access for your generator – you won’t have to run extension cords from your generator into your home.

Learn more | Enroll now

*There’s a one-time installation fee for a surge protection plus device of $49.99, which is a limited time offer and will expire on December 31, 2024. After the expiration date, the installation fee will return to its normal price of $99.99. To access the Surge Protection Plus program’s Terms and Conditions, visit dteenergy.com/sppterms.

and of course that URL is hyperlinked with a big long tracking string on the end of it so I won't be sharing it

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 5 months ago (7 children)

Dumb European here; "In the event of a power outage, you can connect your generator to the surge device with the power cable to power your home up to the generator’s capacity. Easy access for your generator – you won’t have to run extension cords from your generator into your home."

Is this really a thing over there? I never had more than a flicker of outage here.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 5 months ago (2 children)

ex European living in US

it is WILD how often the power goes out here.

Multiple times a year - sometimes for days at a time. We had to claim the contents of our fridge and freezer on insurance after it went out for 4 days.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 months ago (1 children)

This is emphatically not the case for all Americans, but it certainly can be. Do you live somewhere remote?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Atlanta, GA

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

A red state, in terms of state leadership

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

Where do you live that this is happening?

I ask because this hasn't been my experience ever in the US having lived in cities and states of various sizes.

I will believe there are problems some places in the US, but I would then ask: are you living in a similar area as you were in the EU in terms of population and income?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I can't speak for the person you replied to's experience, but in mine it's usually either a car hit a powerline pole or a storm knocked a tree/branch into some lines and cut it. While I'm sure it's technically possible to make powerlines that can survive tornadoes, that's not practical.

In the case of a car causing it, it's rarely down for more than an hour. Usually less. Storms can be anywhere for a few minutes to hours depending on how bad it is/how big the effected area is. If I had to guess, I lose power for >30min probably twice a year. Mostly depends on how bad tornado season is.

Worst I've personally experienced was ~12 hours after a really bad storm knocked out power to a really, really big area. We got unlucky and were towards the end of the repair cycle.

Then you have Texas, who run their own grid separate from the national grid. It fails when it gets too cold. Not too much of an issue, it's Texas, doesn't get that cold too often. Problem is it also fails when it gets too hot. That's very much an issue, it's Texas, it gets hot real often.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Atlanta, GA

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

🤷‍♂️

I will admit to not having lived in the south. Maybe things are that bad down there, based on what you're saying.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

we just have exterior/above ground power lines on poles connected to the eaves of the buildings in a state with a lot of inclement weather and large amount of leafy tree growth.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I mean, yeah, but I grew up in the northeast. You get a power cut from storms, ice, winds taking branches down, etc. You would usually lose power for less than a day. This maybe happened once every couple years?

This was 30+ years ago for me now, but that kind of minor outage is almost unavoidable.

I'm not sure why Atlanta would have a harder time than upstate ny, but I am willing to believe you. Its just not been my experience anywhere I have lived (which has mostly been what you describe: above ground lines).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Do you count power going out for a few seconds? I feel like that happens at least once a month, whereas that was hugely irregular in the UK?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I have never experienced that in the various places in the US I have lived.

I have lived in an old building where the voltage could and would sometimes drop too much for modern electronics to handle. A power conditioner or UPS resolved that if you run into that particular problem.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

yes I have four UPSeseses in my house!

It's tempting to blame it on the house, but I've lived in four different places (although all in the same area) — three houses and one apartment that all do it.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Yep. Happens a few times yearly for me here in the midwest, in every place I've ever lived, usually after a storm knocks out a power line or a transformer blows. It's generally not for longer than a day or two but a direct lightning strike did knock it out once for like a week. Given, my state ranks pretty low for electrical grid reliability.

Our power companies, being privatized, have very little incentive to invest in their infrastructure until it's already on its last legs and they can't avoid it anymore. So they invest in politicians that let them put it off for as long as possible instead :)

What was it they said about capitalism breeding innovation?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago

I live in Texas. ~cries in Oncor~

[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 months ago

Most homes in the US get their electricity via arial lines on poles vs. Europe, which buries a lot of the electrical lines.

Wires on poles go do virtually every time that there is any sort of storm. Especially in areas with lots of trees.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago

Our grids are poorly regulated by comparison and also have to span much greater distances to serve the same or less amount of people.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

It depends where you live. Where I live right now I haven't had literally a single outage or flicker for over 7 years.

Up in the mountains, however... Buckle up!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

Yeah in the UK literally thr longest I've ever been without power was like 4 hours a couple of months ago when they were doing some maintainance down the street.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Not frequently, but weather extremes and natural disasters do cause outages. I was without power for a couple weeks after a tornado came through my neighborhood. Now I own a generator.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Thank you all for your answers! When you leave the cities here, cabling on utility poles is not uncommon, so disconnects are probable, when a tree falls in bad weather or so. Just also wanted to check if you all own a generator, because that is totally uncommon in metro areas here. If an energy provider in a city suggested or advertised an external generator connection as a bonus, he would be laughed at.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

I appreciate your question, it is nice to see things from a different perspective. My generator is definitely a luxury that hopefully can remain off. Most utilities focus on uptime and this generator ad is a weird cash grab by preying on people’s fear. My local natural gas company did a similar thing where they strongly encouraged us to buy buried pipe damage coverage through them. If a pipe is damaged on your property then you have to pay a contractor to fix it.

American suburbia is an odd thing. The core metro is usually well planned and stays online due to buried cables. However, a lot of old suburbs were built with overhead lines. Then expansion never slowed down and the cities grew around the old suburbs. Many of the modern suburbs now have underground power, but even they may be fed by overhead poles outside the community. However, other parts of America could be different where they have hurricanes or earthquakes regularly.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 5 months ago

They’re advertising this a little wrong.

It should be $30/mo for insurance and it comes with a free surge protector and generator hookup.

Honestly if you can cancel that subscription and keep the equipment that’s probably a good value.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago
  1. It’s an insurance plan
  2. Its the most expensive option
  3. Yup, that’s heckin expensive. You’d think the rate would go down after they installed protective equipment. Instead they’re renting the equipment to you like feckin Comcast.
[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

There are many causes of power surges. While one potential cause is poorly maintained equipment, that is far from the only cause. Things like lightning strikes, tree or storm damage, load fluctuations, or equipment faults can cause them. They happen quickly enough that the protective systems can't always prevent damage to equipment downstream, but those systems are designed to protect the distribution equipment, not the loads themselves. Surge protectors are designed to protect your loads from surges and are important devices to protect sensitive equipment. OP is supposedly an electrical engineer, but this is either outside of their wheelhouse or they are just trying to jump on the enshittification bandwagon.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 months ago

Remember! Capitalism isn't capable of fixing the problems that it causes, it can only exploit the people affected by the problems for higher profits

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago

Worked on electrical utility meters for a bit and this was a built in feature... maybe it's a hardware update that would be required for outdated meters but the additional monthly service fee is kind of ridiculous.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago (1 children)

DTE really went downhill these past few years. Been blowing transformers left and right during weather that would otherwise be considered normal for Michigan.

No idea if it's cuz of age or unresilient setups, but the amount of power outages has been going up.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

Factually Detroit Water and Sewage wanted me to get plumbing insurance. DTE also stated publicly that any repairs or upgrades to infrastructure wont increase consumers bill , thats a fucking lie my bill has incrased by ~$75 to ~ $95 as both electricity and natiral gas are combined in one bull

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Am I dumb or is this what your fuse box is for?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

That is not what a fuse box, well breaker box, is for. A breaker box is pretty much only designed to prevent the wiring in your house from catching fire and to prevent people from accidentally electrocuting themselves. Though, the latter is more recent than you'd like it to be. GFCI wasn't always required and I'm not even sure if AFCI is required everywhere. A breaker box will likely trip during a surge but it's not going to be instant. So until it trips, all that extra power just flows through all your devices. Surge protectors are designed to prevent that.

While I'm pretty confident about this answer, I am not an electrician or anything. I just learned a lot when I had to get my breaker box replaced and had to brings some things up to code as a result.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

What’s crazy is you can get a whole home surge protector in your panel for like $130 plus the cost of a breaker for your panel (~$10-20) if you don’t have an empty one of high amperage (been awhile since I installed mine but I think it needs a 50a breaker). they’re pretty simple to install but if you’re not extremely comfortable working with electricity you absolutely should get an electrician to do it and not fuck around inside your panel though. If your home is relatively new you also potentially already have this as iirc they added this to building codes in many locales in recent years

Edit: I’m realizing the monthly fee is for generator monitoring. I have a generac generator and they charge similar fees if you use their crazy overpriced hardware but the genmon project on GitHub uses a raspberry pi and some cheap cables to achieve much more robust monitoring without the need for a subscription if you have a Honeywell or generac generator. Fuck fees.

But that’s actually a decent price for a whole home surge protector + install, which makes me assume it’s probably a cheaper one. Mines one of the nicer spec’d models bc I use a decent amount of power, there are def cheaper options, plus I’m sure they get them much cheaper buying in bulk

[–] [email protected] -3 points 5 months ago (2 children)

A subscription for surge protection is fucking stupid - that's insurance renamed; but you, OP, clearly do not understand how electricity works.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

lol. My bachelor of science in electrical engineering begs to differ but go off I guess.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Then why would you imply that power surges are necessarily caused by shitty infrastructure and not by physics/nature/technical limitations/unpreventable system faults? Just to feed into the enshitification circle-jerk?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Idk maybe I was never informed on how the fundamentals I learned in college applied to an entire electrical grid and the implications I would need to understand if I were to hypothetically own a home some day. Would have been nice if you started out by explaining this instead of insulting my intelligence but maybe that's just not how we operate here. Edit: The only surges I had heard of happening thus far were from power returning after an outage, and I've never experienced one afaik.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

How did you come to the conclusion that OP doesn't understand how electricity works?