Adequate utility grounding improves power quality, but more importantly, it is essential for worker safety as well as public protection. Design is critical in maintaining a safe equipotential environment all around the substation.
Construction is important to accommodate fault currents without leaving the substation with dangerous potential gradients.
A tester must establish a sufficiently low resistance to remote earth so that operation remains within safe parameters. Similarly, safe step and touch potentials must be...
Electric utilities maximize utilization of their assets, while maintaining reliability. Power transformers are typically reliable, but have been known to fail suddenly and/or prematurely. Transformer failures are both costly and can leave customers dissatisfied, harming the reputation of a utility....
As electrical systems age, operating costs increase while reliability dwindles. Given most utilities and industrial facilities are highly capital intensive and have limited financial and other resources to make wholesale equipment replacements, regular maintenance is critical for controlling the...
Critical infrastructure security is in the national spotlight. In 2020, the power grid and energy sector was the third most targeted sector for cyber-attacks, up from ninth place in 2019, and the threats are growing more sophisticated. The Biden administration recently issued a national security...
An Infrared Inspection Window is used to separate environments of differing pressures or temperatures while allowing light energy at a specified electromagnetic wavelength to pass between the two environments. They must meet the strength and environmental requirements for the type of equipment in...
Critical infrastructure security is in the national spotlight. In 2020, the power grid and energy sector was the third most targeted sector for cyber-attacks, up from ninth place in 2019, and the threats are growing more sophisticated. The Biden administration recently issued a national security...
The widespread application and use of electricity, which may now seem like a simple commodity, is considered one of the greatest technical developments of all time. However, keeping up with today’s demand for power is anything but simple: a vast amount of resources goes into maintaining a...
The widespread application and use of electricity, which may now seem like a simple commodity, is considered one of the greatest technical developments of all time. However, keeping up with today’s demand for power is anything but simple: a vast amount of resources goes into maintaining a...
One of the important trends in design of new overhead lines over the past 20 years has been development of structures and designs that are less obtrusive and more pleasing visually. Much the same process has also been going on at substations. For example, even 25 years ago, efforts had already been...
Every day across the country, animals enter substations for warmth, food, security, or simply out of curiosity. In many areas, wildlife intruding into power equipment has become the leading cause of outages – even more common than storms or vegetation.A single substation outage can cost tens...
As the world’s technological landscape continues to grow and the demand for electricity increases, so too do the occurrences of power outages. Check out Critter Guard’s curated list where we track power outages statistics and data below or check out our power outages infographic. Power...
