The power has been out all weekend and he issues a notice at 4:00 am on Monday? That’s awfully considerate of him.

Already drove that highway this morning and I think I would keep my kids home today. Ice and slush making for terrible driving conditions. Can’t count on YRB anymore for quality work. Keep your kids safe, keep them home today.

Snow load on the lines? Heat them.

from the following link
http://www.merrillenergy.com/Icing31.pdf

For 50 years US utilities used load and short-circuit currents to melt or prevent transmission line icing.

This technique fell into disuse in the US during the last 50 years. Major recent ice storms caused many downed lines and much loss of customer load. Improved control and weather monitoring allow transmission-icing risks to be hedged without switching or otherwise jeopardizing system security. A careful risk analysis is needed to develop the right strategy.

Furukawa Electric – We manufacture anti – snow conductors that prevent accretion of ice and snow, by mounting resin rings at regular intervals at the time of conductor manufacturing.

This anti-snow conductor has the advantage of laborsaving at the time of installation compared with the anti-snow ring which is manually installed on the existing lines using a midair carriage, and moreover, the conductor is indispensable for small-capacity lines where midair carriages are unusable because of the small-sized conductor.

So replace all the lines ? And people thought the smart meters were expensive.

Just put the lines under ground, no issues with ice or people driving into the power poles, other than that cost issue ( there are some technical issues as well ).

“So replace all the lines”

Anything like that is done in increments …. as lines are replaced, replaced them with ice-free lines …. or maybe there is an add-on solution.

We do not even know what they have tried, do we?

College Heights has underground cables, as does most of the development west of the bypass. The old part of the city is has utility poles. Any new development has underground access to the service entrance then connecting to above ground transmission lines. That way, if they ever incrementally put in underground cables, as they did on George Street, there will not be the additional cost of hooking up to the buildings.

I am encountering your kind of mindset in other areas, NoWay. If there is a change, too many people think it has to get done immediately rather than over time. As a result, they end up not doing it.

Thanks Hillbilly. I figured best to keep my kid home today. If I wanted him on the road to Blackburn I would have registered him there.

This must be a new kind of snow we are getting….for several thousand years we have had heavy snow falls….this is only the second year that the Willow River area has seen so many outages due to:

“”B.C. Hydro’s Bob Gammer says “What has been causing the outages has been snowload on the lines – not only the distribution lines, but also the transmission line that comes from Prince George out to the Upper Fraser substation – and, then, also trees, snow bringing trees into contact with our lines.””

Snowload….really….what has changed in the last two years?

For snow to stick to wire requires the perfect condition which is an ice layer. This rarely happens but when it does the snow will build up uncontrollably until it warms up enough for the ice layer to melt.

Also if you thought smart meters were expensive, you have seen nothing if you want powerlines underground. Not a perfect solution though as underground wires have outages too, and I think it would he harder to find and fix.

So how many special need students in private schools?