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Underground Distribution


Solving Underground Cable Problems with Partial Discharge Testing

How to prevent failure with partial discharge testing BY HENNING OETJEN, Megger Partial discharge (PD) measurements are increasingly used as a reliable and non-destructive diagnostic method to detect weak spots in the insulation of underground cables. Routinely, partial discharge measurements are...

Distribution Protection


Coping with Extreme Weather Events

How to optimize the entire outage lifecycle BY RICK NICHOLSON, Ventyx The extreme weather just keeps coming. In 2012, there were 11 outages due to severe weather costing at least $1 billion. The year of 2013 had its share as well. More and more, the scale and variety of such major events are...

Disaster & Recovery


Texas CEO Calls for Redesign of the Grid

As Texas continues to experience rapid population growth and surging electricity demand, there is increasing pressure on the state's electrical grid to meet the needs of its residents. According to Texas energy leader, Dan Woodfin, the state's grid needs a fundamental redesign to address the...

Infrastructure & Technologies


Underground Smart Grid

In recent years, the cost to bury high-voltage power lines has decreased dramatically. The American Transmission Company reports that installation costs for underground transmission lines (over 100 kilovolts) are now only 2.5 to 10 times the cost of an equivalent overhead line. Consequently, the...

Conductors & Materials


How Modern Conductors are Improving Grid Reliability and Much More

Reflections: Nearly twenty years ago when I got into the energy business, reliability was a second-tier design objective for most transmission engineers. Safety factors had already been established and the materials we used for structures and powerline wires (conductors) were well known. While...

Overhead T&D

"Smart" Insulator

Transmission Line Resiliency

Resiliency is a term used more and more by transmission line stakeholders including designers, operators, and owners. Resilience is simply defined as toughness or the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties. It can be used to describe a system, an object or even a person. Dr. Ginsburg, child pediatrician and human development expert, proposes 7 C’s that make up being resilient – competence, confidence, connection, character, contribution, coping and control. Although some of these words may...

Overhead T&D Articles