Electrical components can often experience difficulty with extreme heat or extreme cold. Strong winter weather can bring on a number of challenges when it comes to power outages and a need for ongoing repairs. Snow and ice can quickly lead to widespread outages that will often result in problems for your business or for your power grid as a whole.
As ice accumulation on power lines can add up to 250 pounds of weight, this can cause a series of emergencies that can disrupt your operations and disrupt multiple customers on the same powerline. Following some top winter tips for your substation and components can make sure that you are not heavily affected by winter storms and that you have a plan in place to prevent the hazardous conditions of winter operations with power systems.
Trim Trees From Lines
If you have overhanging trees near the lines it’s important to consider that trees can quickly fill up with ice and affect your lines as well. Trimming back your trees and preventing the chance that they could impact your power lines is important.
Focus On Insulators
The insulators can also have another effect on snow and ice storms. When ice begins to build up as a result of moisture congregating along an insulator, this will lead to a failure in the hardware line. Perform a visual inspection of your insulator and make sure that they are not damaged or missing a coating where ice could quickly build up.
Power Switches
Ice collection on power switches is not good and they can become frozen closed. You need to bring along a deicer to make sure that you can keep the switch open and ready to move in the event that there is a change in load and power generation.
Have Generators In Place
Make sure you have some sort of backup whether it is a portable power solution from a generator or a full backup in the form of a substation.
Contact us today if you could use assistance with your winter power considerations.
This post was written by Justin Tidd, Director at Swartz Engineering. For nearly a half a century, Swartz Engineering has been at the forefront of industry safety. They are a family-owned company specializing in power distribution for the electrical industry. They are the leading manufacturer of reclosing relays. It is the most widely accepted protective overcurrent device used in the transit industry today.
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