alt Hacker News30 years ago my local electric co-op was bragging they got transmission losses down to 4%, when the rest of US was 8% (I'm not sure if that is average or some other statistical term).
But yes, transmission losses exist and are surprisingly large
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dopa42365 • yesterday at 3:00 PM
It's mostly about the distance, isn't it? Iirc even with the most modern ultra high voltage lines, it's about 3% per 1000km. Which honestly doesn't sound too bad, even for really long distances (like solar power from some desert to where people actually live).
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every step in the chain loses power. You lose power just in the power lines. Every trip through a transformer adds some more loss
Reducing the number of transformers, raising the high side of system voltage, and increasing conductor sizes are all ways to reduce the transmission losses. of course each of those requires investments so that's why it can be variable and also something to brag about