Power outage response - Virtual ride along!
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- Äas pĆidĂĄn 19. 09. 2022
- Hey Everyone!
Anytime I have a medical appointment, something happens!đ€Šââïžlol. This one was a fairly big outage that affected both local traffic control and businesses. I simply hit record and explained my thoughts throughout the restoration process.
It's not often I'll close in a line without first patrolling everything. In this case, I felt it was an acceptable risk. Response was very quick and the chances of an additional fault occurring while the line was out was less likely than a fault occurring after the first portion of patrolling the line. After immediately finding the fault, a full line patrol would have left the system vulnerable (for an undetected fault) for a much great duration of time. Clear as mud?
** These video's are NOT intended for training or D.I.Y. Only properly trained and authorized personal are allowed to work on this equipment. Always adhere to work methods and procedures particular to the company you are working for. **
Be safe Everyone. Cheers! đ„
Don't forget to drop a đ along with where you're watching
⥠/ bobsdecline
#Bobsdecline, #Beingalineman, #Lineman
Hey Everyone!
Anytime I have a medical appointment, something happens!đ€Šââlol. This one was a fairly big outage that affected both local traffic control and businesses. I simply hit record and explained my thoughts throughout the restoration process.
It's not often I'll close in a line without first patrolling everything. In this case, I felt it was an acceptable risk. Response was very quick and the chances of an additional fault occurring while the line was out was less likely than a fault occurring after the first portion of patrolling the line. After immediately finding the fault, a full line patrol would have left the system vulnerable (for an undetected fault) for a much great duration of time. Clear as mud?
Actually you explained it very well.
Just an FYI, I could still make out the address you tried to blur. I won't type it out but I was able to google maps the sub station in riverview.
I figured it out too. Googled it and checked street view. I'm in western Canada, and never been out that far east. I'll have to go sometime.
@@ryan0io I don't see why it matters. There's substations everywhere, there's nothing particularly special about this one, I just suspect it's easier for him if he attempts to block out the addresses so his company is less paranoid about random crap.
@@ryan0io congrats on being a stalker đ
Years ago while living in Detroit my power was flickered a couple times, so I looked out in my alley and saw very loose wires in a moderate breeze was making contact, while calling 911 two phases actually welded together before falling on a steel fence. I warn the fire dept."don't touch the fence!"my power was out for several hours too!
Good call! That's a really scary situation when a metal fence gets energized. I've had three calls now where an lines re-closed on a chain link fence multiple times before locking out.
@@Bobsdecline I find north american hv stuff to be a bit scary, here in the uk it's all phase to phase, any ground current is definitely a fault, the protection relays are usually set to 5A or so. The star point of the 33kv/11kv transformer is usually impedence grounded (IT system) with a 7ish ohm resistor/inductor, to limit earth/ground fault current to about 1kA
to clarify, all loads are phase to phase, even single phase loads, are fed with 2 phases, and no neutral, on the HV side, all LV (240/480) loads are single end or centre tapped to earth as you'd expect
thank you for warning them, it's easy to think 'they know what to do' but remember electricity is just ONE of their many concerns....
@@Bobsdecline Absolutely terrifying. That's the thing about system protection engineering, it's not human protection engineering.
Electric generation and distribution has always fascinated me. Certainly I'd never get to see the inside of a Sub Station or it's control room much less real life real time patrols and corrections! Please keep posting videos!
It's always funny when I either recognize a call from either having taken it or overheard it, or in this situation, seen the outage pop up on our screen in the contact center at the start of my lunch with so many people out and then within so little time it be back on / my first call after my lunch was a "hey my power has been... oh wait, it's back never mind" call
I couldn't imagine how busy those phones must get at times!
I did that once. Just got through my power company's phone tree and the power comes on. That's why I always try to wait at least ten minutes before reporting a power outage. So often the reclosers are still attempting to reset. Sometimes the crew is already there. Sometimes just have to let the wind die down. Never can tell.
The telemetry that power utilities and communications companies have in this day is amazing if you know how to use it. I've been a communications tech for 22years..The abilities we have now to monitor, troubleshoot, and be proactive with the systems today would have been unthinkable just 20 years ago...
Stay Safe up there Brother!
Also, hoping you Guys have a mild winter!!!
Yeah the Orion RTUs are nice.
It's the so-called "Smart Grid." Soon we won't have to call in any power outages.
Hey mate,I noticed you took your chain off before getting to work,good move,I work on transmission lines in Australia & I take off all rings and chains before going up,I do know guys who don't care, which is a really bad attitude.Work safe Brother!âĄâĄđđđđđĄđĄ
22 years ago I saw an electrician get half his finger burned off after his wedding ring shorted a battery bank to the chassis. I never wore jewelry again.
@@MikeF1189 That's all it takes,some people just don't realise how stupidly powerful electricity is,most have never felt it so they get lax,I have felt it so maybe that's why,but you just can't risk it!!
Really appreciate the customer service you provide. Had a bad neutral on my house the other day, guy comes out, says thats what it probably is and says he's going to check to drop at the pole. Goes up, changes a suspect connector and just splits. Didnt say anything to us or if he fixed it or anything. The problem continued to get worse so we called back, now after dark. Between kids and being on a well and understanding the fire hazard because I'm a firefighter we knew it needed to be fixed before it cooked a pump or burned up something. Same guy returns, finally checks and finds 105v and 145v on the legs. Says the problem is at the weather head and has to go up but can't use a ladder at night alone and has to back his truck across my lawn because they won't add another tech. Had no choice, had to do it, nice deep ruts in my lawn and to finish it off his response to it being cheaper to add another guy than for me to file a claim for the damages to my lawn he threatened to "decide something was unsafe (after everything was fixed and tested) and cut my power at the pole and come back the following day... All cause he made an assumption and didn't bother to take 3 minutes and check the legs the first time...
I spent most of today drawing the wiring diagrams for a substation. The other part was drawing a one-line diagram of another substation. It's awesome to see the real thing. Thank you so much for sharing this, and getting the lights back on!
I'm a broadcast engineer. I had a dental appointment, today, as well. All I had to do was sit in the dentist chair to take a radio station off the air 30 miles away. Next time I'm at the dentist, I think I'll remain standing.
Well, Rick, how about while the sparky is at the dentist, you give us a look into your job? Broadcast stuff has always fascinated me. I think youâll get a few subscribers, and Iâm gonna be one of them!
I don't know what I hate more, dentist bills or the electricity going out!. Thanks for keeping the lights on , stay safe!
Wow, never even knew how they got our lines/transformers reenergized :D mind boggling, really is :D
Reminds me of restoring VOD service for an area back in my CATV days. Nothing like walking into a fibrebond bunker with dispatch/NOC on the phone, fixing the issue, and seeing the numbers come back.
Great vid! Stay safe!
Along with all your knowledge it takes experience, tiny bit of common sense and judgement to make a call like that. Love your dedication and the judgement to think what is actually being impacted by the outage to measure the level of service needed to get the restoration done safely and quickly.
I feel like Rocky Mountain Power has employees like this as I honestly can't complain with my services because they get services restored relatively quickly.
Thanks for taking us along. I really enjoyed this as it showed me how it can go down. Thanks again.
Thanks for showing us !
Excellent job!
great stuff, thx
that was a good power ooootage response
Great videos. I really find sub stations fascinating.
Thanks Arron, as always an informative video. Thank you and stay safe. Steve from Massachusetts.
Hi Aaron, đđ»đđ»
That was a quick fix. You got lucky there wasnât more damage to the line. The tree leader was small & devoid of leaves (the high energy fault burned those away).
Nice job man!
Thanks John! How was your and the wife's summer?
Awesome ride along. Thanks for taking us on the job with you.
Every slack-jawed yokel: "Lightning struck a transformer and it SPLODED!"
Every call - "transformer blew up" đ€Šââïž. When they actually do blow up - đ
That was awesome you showed the control panels.
Very informative video, Aaron. Thank you for sharing. Stay safe! đ
Great vid as always, please keep them coming as and when you have the time đđ»đ
That was great! Thanks as always for taking us along ! You just reminded me I have a dentist appointment in Oct, lol
This start-to-finish "ride-along" of something easy or relatively mundane is pretty cool - great video.
Thanks, Aaron. It's interesting how this all works, and what you folks do to keep the power flowing.
I enjoy your videos, and have learned a lot of fascinating things about the power systems around me and the folks who maintain them. Thanks!
Also, I saw the thumbnail for this one and first thought it was skweezy jibs!
Great video bring's back happy memories of over 30 years of trouble work. Your control room / despatch centre cannot close that recloser remotely , we had that ability since the early nineties saves alot of outage time we would go and reset the targets at the substation later once the fault was isolated or restored if possible . Interesting to see such a large ground/ neutral current flow on that feed over thirty amps . In my old company HV loads are three phase delta or single phase phase to phase only no phase to neutral on the HV network. We never had any ground flow of load current except on our rural SWER systems. Interesting to see a different way of HV distribution.
It's really cool getting to ride along with you and seeing how all that works. As a residential and commercial electrician, I really enjoy seeing how all the different sectors of our electricity work. Thank you so much for sharing! I'll tell my horses hello for you!
Excellent comms work to both of you. No bullshit straight into.
Itâs really cool that your the man who gets to restore all the power to customers! Like you mentioned about traffic lights and restaurants! I always wonder what happens behind the scene!!!
It's folks like you that try to keep the lights on as much as possible. Thank you for your service no matter what the weather or what happened, y'all work quickly to get problems fixed.
Very cool.
I work for a utility, but not in the field. This is such a great channel to see some of the work you folks do out there.
Thanks for another grate video. You have such a fascinating job looking forward to the next one đ
đđ»
This channel is fascinating!!
Thanks Wes! đđ€
im happy too !!!
It's really neat to see all the instrumentation that you work with, specially at the substation. Tons of information and control available at your fingertips, not to mention it's probably networked in some way too for remote monitoring and control.
In the UK, all smart car chargers from July this year have to be able to start up at a randomised time between 0 and 10 minutes after a power outage so you donât get a high startup draw from cars charging immediately.
makes good sense đ
Other things to consider is refrigeration compressors especially ones without soft start , these can draw a large inrush current as well and if it's a warm day may have been commanded on by their respective thermostats . Some feeder protection have special cold load pick up settings to stop false tripping on initial feeder reenegisation. Good idea with the EV chargers not all coming back online instantly especially fast chargers with very large loads.
commercial units with DOL start 3 phase compressors, huge current draw if there is still head pressure.
wish there were more channels like yours
Thanks for sharing. Stil find the work very interesting. I still like how a two-hour trip is like minutes. Today I really wish I had a boost button or a helicopter. In our vans we have red switches to turn on the inverters in the truck. I had a new employee with me, and he wanted to touch the red button. Told him it only for emergency and not to touch it. It really got the wheels going. Funny thing was the inverter was broken but the switch still lit up. We did have him going for a while. Funny how a little switch can bring so much entertainment for the day.
I am glad this year we did not have a lot of equipment destroyed by lightning in our service area. It can cause all kinds of problems on low voltage equipment. The cost adds up quickly. Hopefully the storms are kept at bay this week for you. I look forward to more trees messing up someone's coffee. Those rascals always have to be in your wires. The rascals we have like to drive forklifts, tractor trailers. They sure do like to hit the equipment. If not them, it is the gremlins in the system causing grounds on the wiring and other troubles. The boarder sure looks brighter with you out there! keep up the great work.
Nice way of communication over the Telephone
like the vids always when ever you can is good , all input is good when u can , ps may not noticed no metal on person ! thanks Arron all the best
Love your content. My work has a vehicle in motion, belt on. Donât want you getting in trouble.
As a FF have responded to several calls of Power Lines & or Power Pole on fire. But also have had the craziest of them. Had a
RACOON cross the phases and blowed the lines and started a 20 acre brushfire..
My hero. đ·
That could easily look and sound like a lightning strike. It can be quite a show. I really appreciated everything you guys to to keep the lights on. It's usually at the worst times and in the worst weather. Thank you for sharing this video. Stay safe and God bless.
Frankly I don't see how they're confused. I grew up close to a horribly bad intersection. Coincidentally, it happened to also be where a double circuit take out for a substation was located. So it was quite common for a car to hit the pole and take out the lines. I witness many times over the fault this would generate. It was loud, it was bright... but you could clearly hear the 60Hz buzz. It was WAY longer than a lightning strike.
The best was when one of the substation transformers didn't survive the fault... but that was another story.
That was a easy one. storms hear in western NY can be quite bad and power can be out for days at a time. đ
Unsung heroes of everyday life buddy thank you to all linemen for your hard work thanks for sharing buddy
Great job Aaron, More tree issues creating outages.
itâs so interesting that cooperative utilities use reclosers (reclosing breakers) at the substation, while most of the larger Investor Owned Utilities (IOUs) have indoor breakers (walk-in breaker structures) with the reclosing functions at the feeder exit.I see advantages to the outdoor recloser approach as a recloser is a relatively low cost item in case of failure as well as a much faster repair.
Your a Lineman ,online ,getting into a problem in the line ,to get those offline , back on the line ,so people can get back online ,to watch your online search of something thatâs out of line âŠ.. good work if you can keep in-line with this line of thinking âŠ. SAFTY FIRST âŠ. .. is the first line of thought âŠ.. lol. Have a safe day !
Stay inline ,online âŠ.
đ€đ€Łđ»đ»
@@Bobsdecline âŠ. Glad that line made you smile âŠ. ( I worked for a power line contractor in Vancouver Canada .. the ownerâs name was Robert Smith .. he was an AWESOME person.. still is. Lol. You wouldnât happen to know of him ? ..we occasionally worked in the states âŠ. Eh ! just thought Iâd ask )
The name doesn't ring a bell! While there's always a chance we crossed paths in storm work! Always nice when ya not only meet a great coworker you'll always remember, but when that person is a boss.... That says a lot! đȘđ
In our local 132/11kV substation which has 2:Ă 37MVa transformers installed we have a total of 6 Ă 11 kV feeder outputs coming out of the substation.
Yes over here in Australia we were supplied with power from a 33/11kV substation which was located 16 kilometres away up until 2014 when our local substation was commissioned.
Coincidentally,the only power outage we've had is when a huge storm which was pretty much a category 1 cyclone a few trees down which fell on top of & snapped the 11 kV power outage when it was first commissioned in 2014,we were without power for 3 days whereas some people were out of power for up to 1 week !
Could be dealing with Hurricane Fiona up there by Saturday so it could get quite busy. Stay safe & hoping the storm isn't as bad as models are predicting. Could be major transmission issues if the area gets 100mph+ wind gusts.
2 chainz Arron lol. Always enjoy bro. Send some of that rain and prob cooler weather down her in Mississippi. Lol
Great work! You might want to get a drone to inspect lines.
Funny you say blue light then sparks I just seen the exact same thing the other morning on my way to work. Bright blue light on horizon an then sparks to the left of me on the pole. It was wild how I seen it all happen. That blue light is so bright.
Can see it fr the other side of the city! Often gets mistaken for lightning
look away from the arc if you can, a lot of short wave UV, bad for the eyes.
Just a routine day for an outage simple and easy fix.
What?! No lightening-titlle at the end? I was waiting for that as a close....lol....love that lightening strike intro bro. You can use that tho close out too, you know. It's a kicker type feel as an intro or outro. Just a suggestion; your call.
Good job Aaron, Aay? Just kidding, I can remember when Canadians would say," Aay?" in every conversation, Good job again.
odd fact, when the traffic lights go out here in the UK, traffic usually is easier lol
There's a couple of lights on the main country road in front of my office. At quitting time, that road is backed up horribly every evening. If you aren't out before 4:30 you might as well work till 6:30 cause it makes no difference when you leave - you'll be stuck in traffic and get home at the same time. One day, a power outage had those lights shut down. There was no traffic backup that day. Road was clear.
Iâm a transmission line engineer so I like learning more about the distribution world. Great vids, keep it going. Any idea why the current was so imbalanced between the 3 phases once you closed it?
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How I woulda done it đ nice when the doc can close it tho
Hey bro Greetings from England. Love your videos. You are such a chilled out guy. I am not from an electrical background but I like to learn new things. I have a question about your truck. What make and model is it and would it be possible to one day see a peek under the hood also where are you in Canada?. I visited calgary Alberta in 2005 was over there for 8 days holiday. Loved it over there.
Hey man, I'm a big fan of yours , halfway through my apprenticeship and love your stuff! Just curious , does your employer allow you to go aloft alone without a groundman? And if so do you have a rescue kit within reach on your boom?
Great episode Aaron!!
I noticed that you took off you necklaces before you suited up this time. Is that something that you normally? I've seen several videos now and that's the first time I noticed that. As safety minded as you are, I would be surprised if you wore anything metallic while your near the high voltage. I saw a guy weld his fancy metal watchband to the bolt on a vehicle starter when I was young. He got 3rd degree burns on his arm from the arc and it was only 12 volts. I stopped wearing all jewelry once I started working with electricity. I never could get the image of my co-worker's cooked flesh out of my mind.
It would be nice to hear what the total time of outage was. Maybe from time of call to time of restoration? Stay safe!
2000 amps?! Yeah that must've been crazy! Wonder if anyone got video lol.
Only 15megawatts. 2000amps by 7500 volts just a small boom :)
Iâm surprised you didnât get called for the Derecho in Ottawa. WHAT A MESS!
13:30 I think it is the other ways round, if there is no traffic lights, then there are some traffic signs and/or regulations how to behave as a driver as redundancy/Fallback. No damage for anyone apart from being inconvenient to have to think for yourself. Businesses without power have no Fallback and loose money.
A very good point!
It would definitely help if people followed regulations such as treating intersections as a 4 way stop when lights are down. Many businesses now also have generators which of course can be costly. It's all around a bad scene and electricity proves quickly to absolutely be essential.
Do you guys typically close breakers after lockout events with reclosing on? I'm a Distribution System Operator, our procedure for lockout events is to "try it" with reclosing off first. There's times where we might put it on if there are "inrush" concerns. Just curiois to see how other utilities operate. Great channel! Another operator recently told me about this. It's great to visualize what's going on "out there" on the systems we operate.
wow...that was like being a super hero... swooping in and fighting off the evil force for the public good....
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Looks like it may be time to shuffle some single-phase loads off of A phase and move to C phase.
Question?
Do yâall not have line clearance trimmers like asplundh? Iâm in Oregon and tree trimmers are a must or we will burn in the summers
I also didn't think of the voltage swing, when you watch 120 volts here in the US swing plus or minus 3 volts just from different appliances turning on in the house, when you multiply that through the 60 to 1 pole Pig, it equates to several hundred volts swing on the primary 7200 volts, looks like that stuff can jump up and down by a couple hundred volts. What's your tolerance? 240vac US cango as high as 254 and the power company here doesn't care. I've seen it raise hell with appliances but they always blame it on a spike and tell you to get type 2 SPD or better lol
Our tolerance is 114v-126v and 238v-252v. Sometimes you'll see it creep slightly over until a tap changer adjusts after peak load times
Can you do a segment on pad mount transformers with bayonet fuses? I had to take an emergency outage on a 3 phase pad by pulling bayonets. It was 95 degrees & oil was going everywhere even after venting. Whatâs the best way to kill secondaries on a pad with bayonets during a heatwave?
For switching stations (stations that only have tie circuits and no transformers), are your bus ties normally closed? I ask because my workplace can't seem to figure out if the bus ties are NO or NC.
That recloser looks very small how is it physically made inside what makes the connection inside it ? A copper plate type thing that is on a solenoid ? For each phase ? I'd love to see a video of the insides of it
I have a couple of questions. Is the relay fault distance and fault type sent to the dispatcher via SCADA or do they need you to go to the sub to read that information? Also do the reclosers only have local control (not able to close via dispatcher action)?
900 without power?! PG&E enters the chat... "Hold my beer"...
Can you not measure resistance, capacitance, perhaps rf reflectivity, to detect a second short and distance to short from the recloser?
You need to tighten your seat beat, otherwise it won't help in case it is needed.
Hey Bob I've decided to start an Electric Cooperative here in Virginia and it does take alot to do but it's worth it. I wish you'd live in the states I would of offered you a position to be the VP. The name I decided is Appomattox Electric Cooperative it Intergrates existing Coops 22 counties and I think 8 cities ill go back and count again. My moto is Safe, Reliable, Affordable, Dedicated To You. And I picked out a company logo as well. It may take months even years to get this project all together but I do have alot of support
That's really exciting! Hopefully not too much stress and everything goes smooth. Great moto too! Choosing the word "safe" first is also a great idea in the moto. đđđ€
@@Bobsdecline Thank you so much. I'll keep you updated on what happens
@@Bobsdecline OH and the Headquarters would be Located directly in the heart of Petersburg Virginia. Which would bring a slew of opportunities to this area
@@Bobsdecline And Great job on Getting the 900 customers back on. I find it funny sometimes something so little would cause a huge problem like that and would only take 45 mins to 1 hour to fix lol!
Spacer Cable is no fun to work on, but it greatly reduces these issuesâŠ..
No more mullet đź
Do you have a cold load pickup setting for your relays?
so with all that current on the phases, how come there's 30 odd amps on the ground ? (i assume that's what Ig is)
We have had a ton of new reclosers going in and now thereâs a program in place that does automatic isolating of faults. Itâs never worked correctly but it tries. Do you have any automatic loop schemes that you have to deal with when working with outages? A lot of our lineman arenât very trusting of it!
"If the stars and planets are aligned". Lol. One that I use when fixing signs and I think I have it all worked out before throwing that switch is "pray to the god of your choice"
I appreciate you showing that telemetry view during the recloser reset, just interesting to see what exists.
I assume IG is current on neutral? I think that works out with the phasor/vector sums of A B C. Cheers of Western Australia
So how are fire fighter able to spray water on something like a house fire and not get shocked?
At time 11:08 where you are showing the current imbalance between phases, I assume the ground current (IG) is due to this imbalance. Is this amount of ground current of any concern? Also, is this a grounded or ungrounded wye system?
Lucky it was only that branch you couldâve had a major issue to fix man
Question im no electrical wizard but isn't current on the ground phase a bad thing ?
Ya - and something for "engineering" to look at!
Howâs it going