Proposed automated edit: replace "power=cable_distribution_cabinet" and "man_made=street_cabinet + street_cabinet=power" with "man_made=street_cabinet + utility=power"

[Mateusz_Konieczny]

From looking at say File:P1010010-Cropped.jpg - Wikimedia Commons I have doubts is it sufficient barrier.

[Duja]

…and many modern outdoor devices, including street lighting, traffic signals and monitors, air quality sensors, younameit… are solar-powered, presumably with a battery storage. I’m all for having a tagging system for them, but not within the power space.

There must be a cut-off point when something ceases to be a “generator” and becomes mere “power supply”. It’s not always clearcut (just like a difference between a lake and a pond, for example). Small ones should just be tagged with something like electricity=solar or battery.

[Kovoschiz]

We are talking about =street_cabinet here. It can be larger than the controller cabinet.

• AASHTO - AASHTO Innovation Initiative - Hydrogen Fuel Cell Technology as Emergency Power
  • https://aii.transportation.org/Documents/hydrogen-fuel-cell-assembly-white-paper.pdf
  • https://dot.ca.gov/-/media/dot-media/programs/research-innovation-system-information/documents/research-notes/task4025-rns-03-23-a11y.pdf
  • https://signalscv.com/2022/01/city-installs-hydrogen-fuel-cell-backup-for-traffic-signals/ https://signalscv.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/13162634/FuelCell-3-1536x1152.jpg
• https://www.cityoflancasterca.org/Home/Components/News/News/10398/20 https://www.cityoflancasterca.org/home/showpublishedimage/16793/638966378147970000

[Kovoschiz]

Is power=transformer + man_made=street_cabinet wrong too? These batteries and fuel cells are standalone cabinets. The controller cabinet can have electricity= etc. What does the UPS cabinet use then?
Eg one test tried using a 10kWh battery alone without the solar https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/62649
This seems comparable to the lower bound currently drawn at 11, 13, and 18 kWh generator:storage | Keys | OpenStreetMap Taginfo
10kWh only offered less than a day there. To scale up to the few days to week long provided by solar, and fuel cell, this would be multiplied.

[Duja]

I don’t have a ready answer. I’m just pointing out that some types of (mappable) power sources come at so huge scale range that tagging them all with the same set of tags will eventually overwhelm data consumers interested in electric infrastructure. If every household had at least one solar panel, which is soon going to be the case in many countries, we could map oozilions of power=generators.

I (vaguely) remember the lack of distinction between aerodromes, which caused tens of thousands airstrips to be prominently rendered worldwide, and ultimately led to invention of aeroway=airstrip to distinguish small, unimportant ones.

If I’d have to define a cut-off criteria when something is large enough to be tagged as a generator, I would probably start not by a rated power figure, but by excluding devices that mainly provide backup power, behind-the-meter solar panels, and like… But I think I identified the problem, even if I don’t have a solution.

[InfosReseaux]

@VictorIE

I’m not able to articulate it properly, but I think the (2025?) revisions to man_made=street_cabinet, utility=*, and putting transformers in street cabinets was unwieldy.

We have been down several steps for that, and it’s way older than 2025.

1. man_made=street_cabinet proposal to replace power=cable_distribution_cabinet in 2014: Proposal:Street cabinet - OpenStreetMap Wiki
2. Substations on nodes extension proposal, for more accurate combinations of man_made=street_cabinet, power=substation, power=transformer, substation=* and transformer=* in 2019: Proposal:Substation nodes extension - OpenStreetMap Wiki
3. Utility facilities proposal to replace street_cabinet=power with utility=power in 2022/2023: Proposal:Utility facilities - OpenStreetMap Wiki

@Mateusz_Konieczny

Note: given there is active discussion on possibly undeprecating at least part of such tagging and it goes over my head a bit, for now I am definitely not planning on running this edit.

To people thinking that at least some of this tags make sense: can you discuss undeprecating them and update wiki documentation if people are not opposed to it?

According to past discussions and current practices as well, it’s not a good idea to restore power=cable_distribution_cabinet for sake of documenting uncovered features with more details. I hope everyone agree on this

I agree our tagging misses some situations and it’s fine to seek solutions for them. Nevertheless we shouldn’t look back to find those solutions. To me your edit proposal is fine and it doesn’t prevent anyone to propose appropriate tagging on top of the more robust tagging we’ve built.

Also remember it’s still possible to describe a cabinet as an area and add nodes describing what’s inside if enough knowledge is available to do so. It eases maintenance and avoid tagging combination questions.

[Mateusz_Konieczny]

I have enough plans and ideas for bot edits that are uncontroversial or have very clear consensus for them, so I see no reason to make dubious ones.

It just makes people dubious and more suspicious about nonproblematic ones.

(also, I prefer to take correction for my bias, probably I rate my ideas higher than they deserve, like everyone does with their ideas)

So for now this edit is not planned and will not happen. I will ignore this thread for now, and maybe poke this thread in few months time whether @aharvey found better tagging and/or tried to undeprecate this tag.

And spend my tag cleanup/bot edit hobby time on other tag cleanup or imports or other stuff. I am so NOT running out of idea.