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Vegetation Management

The Vegetation Management Program

How to mitigate risk and ensure reliability BY SARA SANKOWICH, Unitil For most North American electric utilities, vegetation management (VM) is a critical part of system maintenance. Utilities strive to maintain normal conditions and ensure the system can withstand normal weather events. Even on a...

Pole Line Hardware

Utility Pole Showdown: Wood vs. Steel

A recent study that takes an in-depth look at the environmental performance of wood and steel utility poles challenges current perceptions on the sustainability advantages of wood poles when compared with steel poles. The detailed study, titled “Environmental Life Cycle Assessment of Southern...

Outage Management & Restoration

How to Improve Crew Management

Utility implements new system to expedite restoration process BY BILL PERRY, MARCH 24 Media LLC Assembling and deploying utility crews for major events is often a manual, cumbersome process for utilities. When executives or the media ask the status of crews in the wake of storms, it can take some...

Infrastructure & Technologies

The Future of DC Transmission

An inside look at the rise of HVDC technologies BY DIETMAR RETZMANN & KARL UECKER, Siemens Energy The answer to the dreaded cry from towns and neighborhoods against building substations close by may be as simple as a four letter word (or acronym)—HVDC. Short for high-voltage direct...

Conductors & Materials

Facing Wildfire? Choose Toughened Glass Insulators

Insulators under fire, what are we talking about? A line directly in the fire is considered as lost A line near the heat of a fire can be saved What is the condition of insulators on a line nearby a fire? Reliability of insulators during or after a fire is a key consideration for T&D...

Overhead Distribution

Q&A: Transmission Line Inspection Using Robotics

A: Hydro-Québec’s power transmission system, the most extensive in North America, covers close to 34,000 km. Similar to many power utilities, we need thorough infrastructure inspections to ensure system reliability, availability, and performance.Therefore, we have, developed robotic...

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Evolution of Outage Management Systems

Examining the evolution of outage management systems

BY GERALD GRAY & JOHN SIMMINS, Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI)

Once again, a major storm event, in this case Hurricane Sandy, has brought increased attention to a utility’s capability to respond to and mitigate damage to its infrastructure. With all of the investment that the utility industry has seen in infrastructure over the last few years, with major projects and the U.S. Department of Energy matching funds,...

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