Priority Trimming to Improve Reliability

At BGE, changes in vegetation management practices were required to improve upon system reliability. Due to resource limitations, a systematic approach to vegetation management was implemented. Vegetation management activities were prioritized by voltage class and construction type.

Concurrent with this process, actual impacts to service reliability from tree/wire contacts were investigated through controlled testing. With some modification, the testing validated the systematic management approach. As a result, a foundation has been formed for a flexible vegetation management program that factors in tree health, customer concerns and tree/outage relationships in its implementation....