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Disaster & Recovery


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...

Conductors & Materials


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...

Case Study


I Need To Hire a Utility Contractor. Where Do I Start?

In June 2012, the Ontario Legislature unanimously passed Bill 8, the Ontario Underground Infrastructure Notification System Act, which, among other things, requires owners of buried infrastructure in the public right of way – including municipalities, universities, hospitals and private...

Vegetation Management


Vegetation Management on Transmission Lines

Using LiDAR technologies to enhance operations BY PHILIP CHARLTON, Utility Arborist Association In March 2014, utility vegetation managers from throughout North America gathered in Fort Worth, Texas to share their experience with the use of LiDAR (light detection and ranging) remote sensing...

Infrastructure & Technologies


Making the World More Sustainable

Smart grid is an idea of upgradation of the traditional electric grid infrastructure. The efficiency of the existing electrical grid can be automated by integrating with innovative technical equipment such as: high-tech forecasting system, digital sensors, advanced two-way communication...

Pole Line Hardware


Fighting Wildfires to Increase Pole Protection

Evaluating pole selection for increased protection BY BUTCH BERNHARDT, North American Wood Pole Council The number of wildland fires reached record levels in many states in 2014, prompting questions about what poles perform more efficiently in fires: steel or wood. Research from a bulletin...

Overhead T&D

Monitoring Underground Lines with SCADA

How SCADA can help prevent repairs and service disruptions

BY RICHARD CLARK, InduSoft

Underground transmission and distribution lines create unique challenges, as they require special insulation materials to protect conductors, and complex cooling systems because heat cannot be dissipated in free air as with overhead lines. Despite the additional expense of specialized insulation materials and cooling systems, not to mention very high construction costs, underground electric lines are standard in large, congested cities.

Underground...

Overhead T&D Articles