Steve Bennett wrote: >According to the wiki "map features" table, a "power=station" is "A >tag for electricity stations. Wires from power lines come in or go out >here." > >Two questions: >1) Does everyone use it this way? Without having looked at the table, >I would have guessed that a "power=station" was a power plant (ie, a >coal, or gas or whatever plant that generates power), whereas that >appears to be a "power=generator". >2) What is a "power station" exactly? I think I know the type of thing >it's referring to (although I have, perhaps mistakenly, called these >"sub stations" in the past). What does it do? Does it simply convert >high voltage down to lower, consumer-level voltage? > >Hmm, then again, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_substation >seems to use the term the way I understood it: ie, a roughly >house-sized arrangement of electrical equipment, rather than >cabinet-sized, as shown in the wiki page. > >I'll then update the wiki, adding definitions for the individual pages. > >Steve
Your understanding is certainly the common use of those two terms in the US. A power station, also known as a power plant, is an electrical generation site. It includes a device for energy conversion from heat (a steam generation power station), potential water energy (a hydroelectric power station), wind energy (a wind farm), light (a solar power station), etc. into electrical energy. A substation is a location which is used for voltage transformation, conditioning, distribution, and/or switching of electrical power. Substations can be of many sizes, covering several acres to a few hundred square feet or less. Without seeing the specifications for it, I would call the device in the table a distribution transformer. I would say that either the UK/European terminology is significantly different from the US or else the person who prepared the examples for the table had an incomplete understanding of electrical power systems. For terminology commonality, I don't have a problem with using power=generator for a power plant, but I don't think I can bring myself to use power=station for a substation. I think power=substation would fit much better in the US, and it doesn't appear to conflict with any currently defined tags. My preference would be to use power=station for the total power generating facility, including generation and distribution functions, and power=generator for the device or possibly the building(s) within the facility containing the actual electrical generators. However, I guess that might be misusing the power=station tag considering its current definition and use. -- Randy (PE, Elec.) _______________________________________________ Tagging mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
