Hey Everyone! Anytime I have a medical appointment, something happens!🤦♂lol. 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?
@@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.
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
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!
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!⚡⚡🎇🎇🔌🔌💡💡
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!!
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!!!
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 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.
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!
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.
It’s 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!!!
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 you’ll get a few subscribers, and I’m gonna be one of them!
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.
Hi Aaron, 👊🏻👊🏻 That was a quick fix. You got lucky there wasn’t more damage to the line. The tree leader was small & devoid of leaves (the high energy fault burned those away). Nice job man!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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!
it’s 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.
In our local 132/11kV substation which has 2:× 37MVa transformers installed we have a total of 6 × 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 !
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 don’t get a high startup draw from cars charging immediately.
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.
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..
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.
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.
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 that’s out of line ….. good work if you can keep in-line with this line of thinking …. SAFTY FIRST …. .. is the first line of thought ….. lol. Have a safe day ! Stay inline ,online ….
@@Bobsdecline …. Glad that line made you smile …. ( I worked for a power line contractor in Vancouver Canada .. the owner’s name was Robert Smith .. he was an AWESOME person.. still is. Lol. You wouldn’t happen to know of him ? ..we occasionally worked in the states …. Eh ! just thought I’d 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! 💪😎
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.
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.
"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"
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 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. 👊👊🤝
@@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!
I’m 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?
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.
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
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. What’s the best way to kill secondaries on a pad with bayonets during a heatwave?
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.
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
We have had a ton of new reclosers going in and now there’s a program in place that does automatic isolating of faults. It’s 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 aren’t very trusting of it!
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.
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.
Hey Everyone!
Anytime I have a medical appointment, something happens!🤦♂lol. 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 😂
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!
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!⚡⚡🎇🎇🔌🔌💡💡
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!!
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.
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.
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 don't know what I hate more, dentist bills or the electricity going out!. Thanks for keeping the lights on , 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.
It’s 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!!!
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 you’ll get a few subscribers, and I’m gonna be one of them!
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.
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.
Hi Aaron, 👊🏻👊🏻
That was a quick fix. You got lucky there wasn’t 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?
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.
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.
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.
Thanks, Aaron. It's interesting how this all works, and what you folks do to keep the power flowing.
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.
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!
Wow, never even knew how they got our lines/transformers reenergized :D mind boggling, really is :D
Awesome ride along. Thanks for taking us on the job with you.
This start-to-finish "ride-along" of something easy or relatively mundane is pretty cool - great video.
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.
That was awesome you showed the control panels.
Excellent comms work to both of you. No bullshit straight into.
im happy too !!!
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 vid as always, please keep them coming as and when you have the time 👍🏻🙂
That was a easy one. storms hear in western NY can be quite bad and power can be out for days at a time. 😀
wish there were more channels like yours
Thanks Arron, as always an informative video. Thank you and stay safe. Steve from Massachusetts.
Great videos. I really find sub stations fascinating.
Excellent job!
it’s 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.
Very informative video, Aaron. Thank you for sharing. Stay safe! 👊
In our local 132/11kV substation which has 2:× 37MVa transformers installed we have a total of 6 × 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 !
Thanks for showing us !
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 don’t get a high startup draw from cars charging immediately.
makes good sense 🙂
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.
Nice way of communication over the Telephone
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..
Just a routine day for an outage simple and easy fix.
Love your content. My work has a vehicle in motion, belt on. Don’t want you getting in trouble.
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.
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
Great job Aaron, More tree issues creating outages.
That was great! Thanks as always for taking us along ! You just reminded me I have a dentist appointment in Oct, lol
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.
that was a good power ooootage response
Great work! You might want to get a drone to inspect lines.
Very cool.
I’m surprised you didn’t get called for the Derecho in Ottawa. WHAT A MESS!
Thanks for another grate video. You have such a fascinating job looking forward to the next one 👍
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Good job Aaron, Aay? Just kidding, I can remember when Canadians would say," Aay?" in every conversation, Good job again.
2 chainz Arron lol. Always enjoy bro. Send some of that rain and prob cooler weather down her in Mississippi. Lol
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 that’s out of line ….. good work if you can keep in-line with this line of thinking …. SAFTY FIRST …. .. is the first line of thought ….. lol. Have a safe day !
Stay inline ,online ….
🤔🤣🍻🍻
@@Bobsdecline …. Glad that line made you smile …. ( I worked for a power line contractor in Vancouver Canada .. the owner’s name was Robert Smith .. he was an AWESOME person.. still is. Lol. You wouldn’t happen to know of him ? ..we occasionally worked in the states …. Eh ! just thought I’d 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! 💪😎
My hero. 😷
great stuff, thx
wow...that was like being a super hero... swooping in and fighting off the evil force for the public good....
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.
2000 amps?! Yeah that must've been crazy! Wonder if anyone got video lol.
Only 15megawatts. 2000amps by 7500 volts just a small boom :)
This channel is fascinating!!
Thanks Wes! 🙏🤝
Looks like it may be time to shuffle some single-phase loads off of A phase and move to C phase.
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.
"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"
Great vid! Stay safe!
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.
Spacer Cable is no fun to work on, but it greatly reduces these issues…..
How I woulda done it 👍 nice when the doc can close it tho
Can you not measure resistance, capacitance, perhaps rf reflectivity, to detect a second short and distance to short from the recloser?
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. 👊👊🤝
@@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!
I’m 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?
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.
Did that metering show 35 amps going to ground? I noticed that the other panels you showed were significantly lower on (IG); why would that be?
Something to do with the neutral wire carrying the balance of current in a star configuration wye transformer.
the have single phase transformer primary wired line to neutral, and bring that neutral back to the substation.
Because the phases were unbalanced on that line. Neutral is where the unbalanced current goes.
Why were those fault lights still lit up red?
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
When exactly in the video was power restored?
So how are fire fighter able to spray water on something like a house fire and not get shocked?
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. What’s the best way to kill secondaries on a pad with bayonets during a heatwave?
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.
Does each building have backup UPS units to keep power on to the control equipment even when all utilities are out ?
I would assume so. Hopefully 😉⚡️
Large battery banks for worst case scenarios, when there's no feed available
Question im no electrical wizard but isn't current on the ground phase a bad thing ?
Ya - and something for "engineering" to look at!
Who's Substation Control System does your Company use Schweitzer??
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
Lucky it was only that branch you could’ve had a major issue to fix man
We have had a ton of new reclosers going in and now there’s a program in place that does automatic isolating of faults. It’s 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 aren’t very trusting of it!
10:43 - I note that the C phases are all pretty out of balance, and by almost exactly the ground current amounts. Does that pattern mean something?
8:36 did something fall onto the building?
Question?
Do y’all not have line clearance trimmers like asplundh? I’m in Oregon and tree trimmers are a must or we will burn in the summers
You need to tighten your seat beat, otherwise it won't help in case it is needed.
It would be nice to hear what the total time of outage was. Maybe from time of call to time of restoration? Stay safe!
Have you ever closed a recloser and it faulted again?
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.
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)
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.
Do you have a cold load pickup setting for your relays?
900 without power?! PG&E enters the chat... "Hold my beer"...
So why is the ground current so high? Looked like 30+ amps on it.
Because the phases were unbalanced.
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