Extreme weather can overwhelm your power system assets and lead to lost sales.
Thunderstorms pose a serious threat to our power grids. Direct lightning can damage equipment, high winds can topple poles, and heavy rain can lead to soil erosion.
The aftermath usually involves power outages impacting customers’ lives and incurring high restoration costs.
While we can never win against nature, a report from the Department of Energy urges us to reduce our energy infrastructure’s vulnerabilities to climate-related threats.
The situation calls for urgent action as these events’ frequency and intensity increase. Most utilities in the US are still unprepared.
The most effective strategy to protect our power systems is line hardening.
Read this blog to understand what line hardening is and how we can implement it to protect against storm damage.
What is Line Hardening and Why Is It Important?
Line hardening, or storm hardening, refers to physically improving your utility infrastructure to make it resistant to disruptions caused by weather.
This involves assessing potential risks in your systems and taking actions to mitigate them. The goal is to avoid outages when a natural disaster hits.
According to NCEI, 396 billion disasters have occurred in the US since 1980 and have cost over $2.780 trillion
Fortunately, line hardening has proved effective in tackling weather conditions.
FERC has estimated a shocking 250% return on grid hardening investment, leading to reduced power outages and increased customer satisfaction.
Key Strategies for Line Hardening
Let’s look at the 5 strategies that work well against extreme weather.
1. Pole Replacement and Reinforcement
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), your pole should hold against 124 mph of wind on the coast.
One way to meet this requirement is to replace your wooden pole with galvanized steel lattice or concrete ones.
You can also consider a specific grade for pole material strength. The NESC classifies them poles as B, C, and N with B having the highest strength.
Additionally, you can reinforce your existing infrastructure with guy wires and crossarm material. Guy wires can render your poles strong without replacing them while crossarm strengthens your structure with minimal replacement.
2. Undergrounding Power Lines
Undergrounding power lines makes them less susceptible to wind, lightning damage, and ice.
Although undergrounding isn’t economically feasible and is prone to flooding, it can be effective in densely populated areas.
For example, it’s useful for lines that supply power to police, hospitals, and other critical institutions.
3. Vegetation Management
You can manage your rights-of-way (ROW) areas to prepare your system for wind and winter storms.
These are the areas around your power lines that have to be cleared of trees and vegetation to avoid hazards.
Regularly trimming trees and revisiting vegetation management programs are a few excellent ways to reduce damage to power lines and avoid power outages.
4. Elevating Substations
Substations flooding is extremely costly and repairing the damage demands time.
Therefore, the solution is to elevate your substations above water level and moats to create a barrier and protect your system against flooding and water damage.
5. Smart Grid Technologies
Smart grids can detect and point out disruptions and help take necessary actions to solve the issue.
Some smart grid options include smart meters, switches, automated monitoring, backup microgrids, and sectionalizers.
These high-tech solutions don’t only protect your power grids but also reduce overall downtime, making systems more effective in dealing with power outages.
Storm-Proofing Your Infrastructure Is More Than A Necessity
Line hardening is crucial to protect your power systems from extreme weather conditions and ensures you get 100% client satisfaction.
For an immediate and cost-effective fix for unpredictable weather conditions, we recommend pole replacement and reinforcement.
You can either replace wooden poles with steel poles or reinforce the existing ones with guy wires and cross-arm material.
Gulf South Forest Products helps you with top-quality poles, lumber, and sustainable forestry.
Wherever you are, trust us to deliver the finest quality materials you need.
