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I had a tangential WTF experience with Hydro One about a decade ago, but I’m not sure of this is typical for rural power operators. I worked on an island on La
by xattt 5y ago
I had a tangential WTF experience with Hydro One about a decade ago, but I’m not sure of this is typical for rural power operators.
I worked on an island on Lake of the Woods that was wired with power, phone and DSL. The next day, Hydro One was flying a branded helicopter up and down the chain of islands that were wired together to figure out where the lines were down.
The helicopter was absolutely bizarre to me and seemed like overkill, given that I only grew up in urban settings before. I though they might run a boat and walk the ROW. The helicopter seemed like an expensive toy they got to play with every so often.
- bcrl 5y agoThat raises another difference between Hydro One and Hydro Ottawa: Hydro Ottawa has sensors on primary all over the network (something like every 3-5 km). The sensors make it possible to locate faults within a fairly small part of the distribution network almost instantaneously. In contrast Hydro One has very few sensors, maybe one every 15 to 20 km in parts of the network, and sometimes no sensors at all on rural lines that can require driving 50+ km of line to find the fault. We routinely have 4-6 hour power outages, and a good chunk of the repair time is spent finding the fault. Again, Hydro One could install more reclosers on rural lines to isolate faults, but that doesn't seem to be the design philosophy they follow. It's not entirely Hydro One's fault. Building a sensor network in rural Canadian shield geography is challenging as getting radio signals through rocks, hills and trees can be almost impossible, but I still think they can do better.
- mleonhard 5y agoThe sensor signals can travel through the power lines. No radio is necessary.