Electricity Forum Intelligent Power Today Magazine Arc Flash Clothing

Outage Management & Restoration


Outage Management Review: When the Lights Go Out

The occurrence of severe weather events is on the rise at an alarming rate. According to the Insurance Bureau of Canada, extreme weather events that used to happen once every 40 years now occur as frequently as every six years in some regions; severe weather is expected to become even more frequent...

Pole Line Hardware


A New Age for Toughened Glass Insulators - With Clarity Comes Safety

INTRODUCTIONIn 2005 an article about toughened glass insulators (TGI) titled “Return to Clarity” was published. Fifteen years later, this sequel article by a team including the two original authors, picks up where the former concluded with optimism about the future of TGI technology...

Wire and Cable


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...

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...

Disaster & Recovery


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...

Overhead Distribution


Roping Electrical Equipment

How synthetic ropes show results for heavy lifts BY BILL PUTNAM, Yale Cordage Years ago in Oklahoma, an investigation ensued after a pole-mounted transformer dropped thirty feet off a wire winch line and onto the foot of a line worker during a routine maintenance operation. Initially thought to...

Overhead T&D

Lateral Fuses and Reliability

Improving protection and control for distribution systems

BY STEVE GREEY, S&C Electric

In 2008, Toronto Hydro completed a study of its worst performing feeders (distribution system feeder lines). This study identified the utility’s distribution feeders with the poorest reliability. The study raised an interesting question: “Why do lateral fuses which, since the 1930s, have been the most effective way of increasing reliability, provide adequate reliability on some of the 27.6-kilovolt distribution feeders and not others?”

...

Overhead T&D Articles