Technology To Battle Ice Storm Damage To Power Lines

<.........or any agency receptive to innovative low cost technology that can tackle this reoccurring problem....>

Please describe this technology.

Sorry, I cant go into much detail, I have limited I.P protection in place and believe the tech very valuable but safe to say that the cables would be under automatic protection throughout their length, but only when under power however. The Pylon structure isn't covered but protecting the cables goes a long way to maintaining supply during these exceptional conditions.

I can also say that ice build up would trigger the system over seperate individual lengths of about 1-5 Kilometres and that intervention is required on the line to fit the system to each and every cable.

There is no other way this function can be achieved as far as I can see save manualy with helicopters armed with lasers which is a bit far fetched.

In the US, the electric company that owns the power lines is responsible for maintaining them. In Oklahoma that would be Oklamhoma Gas and Electric.

Living in an area that recently suffered outages from ice, I can tell you that a good number of the outages are caused not by ice on the lines, but by ice on the trees. The branches (or whole trees) finally let go, and take out anything below them. I don't know what percentage of outages are due to either cause, but in a residential area with a lot of trees, I would be willing to bet there is more caused by trees. I'm not saying a way to de-ice the lines isn't a good idea, but it won't eliminate the problem entirely, you could cut down all the trees, but I'm not in favor of that! Good luck with your idea.

Tom

Indeed, the more frequent problem is with trees, and not just in the wintertime. The major blackout that impacted the Northeastern US a few years back was traced to some issues with trees here in Ohio. In that case the overheated lines sagged and shorted against some trees. While there is undoubtedly a need to de-ice the lines in certain cases, a mre effctive method of dealing with trees and/or insulation of the high tension lines would be a large help.

What a wonderful reply. You got my vote. All done and over with. Ky.

While not to POP ur bubble, i just do not know, why MOST do not do what was done where I grew up. This was in northern Illinois. no problem ever with ICE, wind, trees, anything. our power NEVER went down, what was this miracle answer?

it was ALL underground! DUH?

Dear Guest,

Do you know how the utilities locate the fault in underground wires in the winter?

They look for the bare ground, where the snow was melted by the underground electrical fire.

Buried conductors from the 1960's-80's have a bad reputation for what is now understood to be quality control problems in the insulating materials where voids exist and partial discharge and treeing occur causing cable failures, these may have been helped/caused sometimes by bending the conductor too sharp, causing premature replacement. Newer underground conductors are far superior if installed properly which is also very specific, thus underground conductors are more expensive initially, many utilities perform testing on underground conductors that is done on overhead lines by tapping on the pole to see if it is solid and cutting down trees. Yes there are "maintenance costs" to both types of distribution.

Yes I have had the utility in my backyard plowing in a new conductor, so right-of-way must be kept open, no structures over or fence posts thru the conductor. My buddy did that to a phone line with a garden stake, phone lines may only be 6 inches underground, powerlines maybe 18 inches? I plowed in the powerlines for a baseball diamond lighting in rock fill soil, what a bear.