Well, I was going to say that if your edges are not standalone (but form faces), you can always duplicate them (but it doesn't work)
Edit the group/component go to wireframe mode and with a selection rectangle (no double/triple clicking) select the edges only copy them, close the group/component and paste in place (this is in the edit menu).Now they will exactly overlap the ones inside the group/component but will be outside of it and as such, standalone ones so should export just fine. Make sure to include these and the original group/component into a new, parent (face me?) component.
BUT it seems that the converter will merge all colinear edges no matter what the hierarchy is. See Allison's explanation here (well, that's a Google Guide for some reason answering as a Level 1 newbie)
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/sketchup/thread?tid=668c54ccde662c39&hl=en
BUT if you have SU 6, export it as "Google Earth 4". That will get your edges through: