Grid voltage to consumer

This past summer there was a suggestion by the power company about lowering their voltage to the consumer and thereby eliminating the build of a number of power plants. This makes everything that the consumer uses less efficient. Light bulbs give off less light, ovens less heat and motors run less effiently. This surely costs the consumer more money to get the same level of service and saves the power company millions of $$, right ?

From what to what?

Makes a difference. You may be getting anything from 110 to 120 now.

By the way, Stalin tried this in the whole of a very large Russian industrial district. They burned out a lot of motors in that test.

I and some of our neighbors would appreciate the power company lowering the voltage in our area.It ranges from 125 to 147 volts at times. We don't go through light bulbs like our neighbors. One neighbor has had to replace the heat pump,well pump,refrigerator several small appliances and lots of bulbs. The power company says the voltage flucuation is within range!

George

Ask the power company to put a power monitor on your distribution transformer. Tell them if they don't the lawyer you and your neighbors retain will hire a third party expert and the power company will pay for him along with the settlement for the rash of failed electrical equipment in the homes served.

The official UL test for high line condition is only 132 volts, which is 10% over the nominal.

Anything like 147 volts is WRONG.

Does your 220 stay correct but the 120 volt give surges? Or is the 220 going up as well?

Do you get lights blinking or dimming?

My suggestion is that you may have a real problem in the local distribution.

Since the usual way to derive a single-phase tap is off one phase of the 3phase distribution, they may have a very unbalanced load condition on their line, which might cause persistent problems of the sort. That is if the 220 goes up.

Alternately, since the 220 center-tapped household voltage neutral is bonded to a ground by your fusebox, there may be a problem with the local distribution transformer. It should have a good neutral to ground connection at the pole, and the neutral should be connected to your box neutral by a wire from the pole (the "drop").

If your distribution transformer no longer has a good neutral connection (the center-tap) then a heavier load on one side of the 110 line will cause a drop in that side's voltage, with an equal boost in the other. That is if the 220 is OK but the 120V surges up (and down, too)

I had this once when the drop neutral was high resistance due to a bad connection (copper wires were black at the connection, which had no clamp).
We burned out bulbs and when I finally got the idea to measure, I was seeing 135 volt and up surges. This was when the microwave was on, or the washer starting a spin cycle, etc, causing a highly unbalanced load.
Because I knew right away what was up, I called the power co the next morning.

They were out immediately to fix it, NO CHARGE.

If you can get a handle on it, then a call to the power co may get a fast fix. If you can spot the busted wire hanging off the transformer, they may be out that day. Thats what I was able to give them for info.

The little lady here at home said the vacuum cleaner sounded like someone shifted it into 1st.gear,from 3rd. She called the electric co-op and someone came within the hour. We were gone and when we came home,a message said they had redone all the connections from the transformer to our eaves.Bad ground connections! Lightning has zapped close by several times! We were very lucky!!