Much like a circuit breaker in your home, when our system detects a fault on the lines, the breaker trips the power to this area to help prevent further damage to our equipment. The breaker will then try to reset to minimize the outage duration.
If the cause of the fault (such as a tree branch) has cleared the line, the power is fully restored. If the breaker can’t reset automatically, our Control Room staff may try to reset it remotely to restore power. This may take a few extra minutes to do. This is a normal part of how an electrical distribution system operates and helps to prevent longer outages.
What we’re doing to address frequent momentary outages
While momentary outages are part of a normal electrical distribution system, we’re continuously monitoring our system for abnormal activity. If we identify cases where customers may be experiencing multiple brief outages over a short time period, we investigate. Our crews and engineers work together to troubleshoot the issues and help prevent them from occurring again.
If we identify frequent momentary outages, we take the following steps:
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Analyze the outages
Our crews and engineers review the frequency, duration and causes of the outages to determine next steps.
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Patrol the lines
Crews patrol the electrical distribution lines to identify potential problems (e.g. overgrown trees) and determine ways to help solve the issues.
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Outage mitigation
Once we identify potential causes of the frequent momentary outages, our crews and engineers work together to help solve the issues. This could include tree-trimming, removing contamination from equipment caused by environmental issue or even making repairs and replacing equipment.
We’re also taking proactive steps to continue to improve power quality: