[TowerTalk] Fwd: A `Time Bomb' Sits Atop 30, 000 Utility Poles In State

[Tom Frenaye]

>>From courant.com 
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>A `Time Bomb' Sits Atop 30,000 Utility Poles In State 
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>CL&P Removing Porcelain Insulators Prone To Cracking  [CL&P = Connecticut Light & Power]
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>By DAVID OWENS
>Courant Staff Writer
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>September 13, 2005
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>The fire that incinerated four cars and a Dunkin' Donuts restaurant May 7 began with a tiny crack in a porcelain insulator high atop a utility pole along Route 4 in Farmington.
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>Through that crack flowed 23,000 volts of electricity that burned through a wooden cross arm. The wire carrying those 23,000 volts then fell to the ground, touching off the fire.
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>A cool-headed Dunkin' Donuts manager locked the restaurant's front door and herded customers and employees out the back. Police and firefighters say it was a miracle no one was killed or injured.
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>At the time, it appeared to be one of those freak accidents that just occurs from time to time.
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>It wasn't.
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>The insulator that failed was attached to a protective device called a "cutout" made by A.B. Chance, a division of Hubbell Inc., in Orange, Conn.
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>There are tens of thousands of cutouts on utility systems. Cutouts halt the flow of electricity if there is a surge, protecting transformers and other electric equipment the same way circuit breakers protect a home.
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>The Farmington fire was an extreme example of what can happen when a cutout fails. But older cutouts - especially those made by Chance - fail more frequently than other types, according to a utility company study, persuading utility companies around the Northeast, including CL&P, to replace them. Unions representing lineman whose safety depends upon reliable equipment say replacements are not going fast enough. They fear that the older porcelain-insulated cutouts jeopardize public safety.
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>"They're basically a time bomb that should be aggressively pursued," said John Unikas of Local 420 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which represents many CL&P line workers.
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>Unikas said the union complained to CL&P about A.B. Chance porcelain cutouts. The union also complained to the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration about an April 20, 2004, incident in Goshen, where a Chance ceramic cutout failed. In that incident, like in Farmington, a cross arm burned, causing a high voltage wire to drop, in this case, onto the wire carrying electricity to a house. It damaged the home's electrical system and some appliances.
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>Reports of problems with A.B. Chance cutouts seem to be confined to northern climates, and utility officials suspect the freeze-thaw cycle is to blame.
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>A spokesman for Hubbell Inc. said Monday he was not aware of the Farmington fire, but said the company would investigate.
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>The spokesman did say trouble with porcelain insulators is an industry problem and not confined to A.B. Chance products. Porcelain insulators are susceptible to cracking because of fluctuations in temperature in cold northern states, Thomas R. Conlin, the company's vice president for public affairs, said.
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>Utilities in the South do not report such problems, he said.
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>Porcelain is a very durable material, but the smallest crack can create a problem, Conlin said. "It freezes and then you know what happens," he said.
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>Utilities in the North are switching to a new kind of cutout that uses a polymer material as the insulator, Conlin and utility company officials said.
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>Conlin attributed the singling out of A.B. Chance cutouts by some utilities and others to the company's market share. "The odds are when one fails, since A.B. Chance sells a larger number of these than anyone else, it's likely it will be an A.B. Chance cutout," Conlin said.
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>CL&P says the remaining 30,000-plus A.B. Chance ceramic cutouts on its system are safe. Still, the company is removing them at a pace of about 4,000 a year. An extra $500,000 was allocated to that effort in 2005 as part of a settlement of a federal OSHA complaint brought by the union. The removal program is expected to take years, added CL&P spokeswoman Mary Ingarra. "They're not living up to their [life] expectancy" of about 40 years, she said.
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>NU is not alone in reporting trouble with Chance cutouts.
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>The Washington Electric Co-operative in Vermont has termed A.B. Chance porcelain cutouts "lemons" in newsletters sent to its members. And co-op officials in recent years reported failures of A.B. Chance ceramic cutouts as the second leading cause of power outages on its system. Severe weather was No. 1.
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>Pennsylvania Power & Light, which serves central and northeastern Pennsylvania, is removing A.B. Chance porcelain cutouts from its distribution system.
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>Dan Weston, engineering and operations director for the Vermont co-op, said he issued his linemen binoculars so that they can carefully inspect A.B. Chance porcelain cutouts before they begin climbing a pole. "By jiggling the pole, this thing can physically break in half," Weston said. "Linemen start to climb a pole and this thing will fall apart and you can have a ball of fire up there."
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>Not all cutout failures spark fires. Most often, the result is a localized power outage or downed wires. But reliability problems with the A.B. Chance porcelain cutouts have cost utilities money as they buy new cutouts to replace the failed devices and pay line crews to do the work. Weston estimates replacing a faulty A.B. Chance porcelain cutout costs his company $300.
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>Northeast Utilities - which includes CL&P, Western Massachusetts Electric and Public Service of New Hampshire - determined in May 2001 that the typical failure rate of porcelain cutouts from 1988 to 2001 was 0.12 percent, according to a letter to the Hartford OSHA office from two CL&P managers.
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>The company study attributed the failure of the porcelain cutouts to cracks in cemented connections to metal hardware as well as cracks in the glazing on the porcelain. The cracks allow moisture to get into the porcelain or the cemented connections. During the freeze-thaw cycle, the cracks widen. The company estimated it would have 500 porcelain cutout failures a year.
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>"The A.B. Chance porcelain cutouts have experienced a slightly higher failure rate than other brands," the CL&P letter reads. "Northeast Utilities stopped purchasing A.B. Chance cutouts in February of 2001. Approximately 50,000 A.B. Chance devices were in service in 2003. Action has been taken to ensure ... the replacement of existing A.B. Chance porcelain cutouts."
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>NU replaced the Chance cutouts with porcelain cutouts manufactured by S&C Electric Co., and reliability of those devices has "been consistently high," the letter reads. NU is now installing cutouts with polymer insulators.
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>The Farmington fire has left Farmington Town Council Chairman Bruce Chudwick wanting to know more about the incident. However, the state agency charged with regulating utilities has opted not to take a closer look at what happened in Farmington on May 7.
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>"We don't know what caused this, whether there was a storm the day before that could have cracked something," said Beryl Lyons, a state Department of Public Utility Control spokeswoman. "Because there were no fatalities or injuries, we are not obligated to do an investigation."
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>Chudwick said he was surprised by that response. "We have to wait for someone to get killed or injured before they look at this?" Chudwick said. "This seems like a serious enough incident that it should warrant investigation by DPUC." 
>Copyright 2005, Hartford Courant
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>Visit www.courant.com for Connecticut news updates, sports stories, entertainment listings and classifieds.

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