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Underground Distribution


Detecting Faults in Underground Networks

Enhancing protection using directional faulted circuit indicators BY CHRISTOPHER EVANICH, Thomas & Betts Underground electrical networks provide reliable service to end users, but create problems for utility personnel in locating faults. Electric utilities who utilize an underground network...

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...

Wire and Cable


The Evolution / Revolution of Overhead Conductors… and why it matters

Brief Background: In the early 1900's Aluminum Conductor Steel Reinforced (ACSR) conductor was developed to replace copper wires, due to the war effort when copper was needed for munitions. In the 1970's growing demand for electricity inspired the development of higher capacity Aluminum Conductor...

Infrastructure & Technologies


Priority to Asset Management

Time to focus on planning contingencies and balancing risk BY DON ANGELL AND MARK RIVERS, Doble Engineering Company By definition for electric utilities, asset management refers to an established system used to monitor and maintain valuable commodities such as transformers and power lines....

Overhead Distribution


Building a better world of smart structures on the smart grid

It is a truth universally acknowledged that billions of people around the world live in poverty. But does it have to be that way? Today’s technological progress means that tomorrow we will be able to produce more, more efficiently – lifting people above the breadline with accelerated...

Vegetation Management


Reliability Vs. Vegetation

Florida Power & Light takes steps to keep lights on Managing vegetation (that is, trees, bushes and other neighboring plants) around power lines is a top priority for electric utilities. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), unmanaged vegetation can cause electricity...

Overhead T&D

Field Worker Connectivity: Mobile technology for utilities

Moving mobile technology to the job site

BY SCOTT BALL, Motion Computing

The world looks very different from the top of a utility pole, or from a manhole on an underground power junction. As electric utilities expand the deployment of technology to their field workers, it is becoming more critical that information technology (IT) departments be able to observe their environment from the worker’s vantage point.

Years ago, IT departments worked with a precursory...

Overhead T&D Articles