Brazilian Field Crews Record Fault Data
To address customer satisfaction and supply reliability, utilities now value the importance of collecting and correctly classifying the causes of every...
Florida Utility to Stage Mock Disaster
In an effort to assess the preparedness of its personnel to work cohesively in a crisis scenario, Kissimmee Utility Authority in Florida will conduct a full-scale mock disaster exercise on Thursday, April 12. ...
Interstate Power and Light Submits Major Winter Storm Restoration Report to Iowa Utilities Board
Interstate Power and Light Co. filed with the Iowa Utilities Board its major event report documenting the outages and costs resulting from two major Midwest winter storms in February 2007. ...
IEEE Sets System Requirements for BPL Standard
The effort to create a broadband-over-powerline (BPL) standard at the IEEE has passed a significant milestone...
Line Workers Learn On the Big Lines
For the past five or six years, utilities have aggressively been recruiting and training new line workers to replenish their workforces. This is evident...
Wood-Pole Fall-Protection System Promotes Safety
Anyone who has cut out from a wood pole, or fallen due to any number of potential hazards while climbing, knows that all the experience in the world may...
Utilities, Efficiency, Environmental Groups Join to Propose New Efficiency Standard for Electric Transformers
The nation's investor- and municipally owned electric utilities, in another indication of energy efficiency's growing value to America's economy, joined with environmental and energy efficiency organizations to recommend significantly higher efficiency standards for the estimated 41 million distribution transformers now serving the electricity system. ...
Ameren Lowers the Boom on Bucket Safety
Three years ago, Ameren (St. Louis, Missouri) began modifying its boom-truck fleet testing and maintenance procedures. Sherry Moschner, fleet services...
Fleet Trucks of the Future
When Doug Houseman sent me concept drawings of a bucket truck of the future being developed by Capgemini and the Smart Energy Alliance, distribution managers...
NECA and IBEW Partner with OSHA to Improve Line Worker Safety
A national partnership joining the National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA), the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the U.S. Labor...
Wood Pole Replacement Where the Winds Blow
In early January 2007, western Kansas received 3 inches of ice followed by almost 3 ft of snow. Our system in central Kansas was on the edge of this storm,...
Intelligent Distribution
The intelligent utility of tomorrow will buy a complete distribution management system package out of the box, according to Mark Dudzinski, GE Energy’s general manager of marketing...
A Road Less Taken
In a time when many companies are expanding their use of contractor services, the vegetation management department at Arizona Public Service Co. (APS;...
One Pot of Money for Many Projects
In an effort to maximize reliability and minimize cost, the importance of prioritizing capital expenditures related to system improvements and additions...
EEI and Federal Agencies Sign Landmark Agreement
Your vehicle's actual top speed is 130 Mph, but the legal speed limit is 70 Mph. This is the ultimate metaphor for progress in a civilized society. From...
Hydro One Demonstrates That Innovation Matters
Hydro one considers vegetation management to be a vital aspect of providing cost-effective reliable service to its customers. Tree removal, pruning, brush...
Boston Selects Two Wi-Fi Hot Spots
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., has begun work on its first demonstration program for the city's wireless initiative. Mayor Thomas Menino said that a 1-sq-mile...
NERC's Transmission Vegetation Management Program Standard
The North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) has a new standard on transmission vegetation management programs (TVMPs), in effect as of April...
Has the Transformer Failed?
It's all about pole-mounted distribution transformers. Like every other utility, line crews at Hydro-Qubec (Montreal, Canada) find reclosing on distribution...
Russia Rethinks Distribution
The medium-voletage distribution networks in Russia are regarded as low level in terms of the national power transmission and distribution systems. The...
Electronic Shock Absorber Gives Hawaiian Wind Farm a Boost
Wind plants are playing an increasingly important role in the generation of electricity worldwide. But there's one obvious downside to wind power: the...
Working Through the Chaos and Confusion
In my 32 years of experience, I have never seen as much damage to an electrical system as I saw when Synergetic Design's storm assessment team entered...
DTE Energy Considers Distributed Generation
Load grows! And over time, this increases the possibility of overload conditions, which traditionally require system infrastructure upgrades to continue...
Envirotemp FR3 Fluid Chosen in Brazil
ITAIPU Transformmadores in conjunction with CPFL, a distribution utility, and B&M, a research and development company, developed an 88-kVA compact distribution...
The Right Tool For the Right Job
Hand injuries represent a high percentage of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's recordable accidents each year in industrial work such...
