With extreme weather on the rise and winter fast approaching, Eversource crews are busy maintaining and upgrading electrical equipment all across Western Massachusetts. This year-round work keeps the system resilient, reliable and better able to withstand all kinds of weather.
“We are continually monitoring the performance of our electric system with an eye toward replacing and upgrading equipment to improve reliability and resiliency during storms,” said Chris Colorio Director of Electric Field Operations for Eversource in Western Mass. “We use a three-pronged approach consisting of proactive vegetation management; upgrading equipment to better withstand severe weather; and adding high-tech automation to allow us to restore power more quickly.”
Advances in technology are also enabling Eversource to add an increasing amount of sophisticated switching equipment that remotely reroutes power around damaged lines to quickly restore it to the greatest number of customers possible during an outage. In many instances, this can be done during a storm even before it’s safe to send out a crew.
This year alone, Eversource is investing close to $1 million for equipment upgrades in communities across Western Mass. Greenfield, Amherst, Hadley, Montague and Montgomery are the latest communities to benefit from this work, with upgrades scheduled to be completed by the end of December.
In 2016, the company plans to invest in additional upgrades to benefit communities including Springfield, Ludlow, Agawam, Hadley, Longmeadow, Plainfield, Cummington, Chesterfield, Worthington, Blandford, Russell, Lee, Otis, Sandisfield, Pittsfield, Becket and Washington.
