Greater Sudbury Hydro customers in New Sudbury and Capreol may notice brief power interruptions starting today.
A team from Energy Ottawa will be working with the Sudbury team to test underground distribution cables.
The testing begins today and will take about one week. The New Sudbury area east of Montrose and a small area in Capreol will be subject to the line testing.
There may be very brief power interruptions in those areas as the testing proceeds, but they will be localized and only about 5-10 minutes long.
It’s all part of diagnostic testing to assess the condition of underground lines and determine whether they need to be replaced.
The health of underground hydro assets is an important key to ensuring system reliability, said a press release from Greater Sudbury Hydro.
“We know the age of the underground cables in our grid, but age is not always the best indicator and can lead to replacing aging assets too early,” said Mark Van de Rydt, supervisor of engineering.
“Replacing an underground cable can be extremely invasive for homeowners, and is many times more expensive than replacing an overhead line.”
Greater Sudbury Hydro has contracted Energy Ottawa to do the testing, as the technology is new and not yet widely available.
“The technology’s low voltage testing methodology is fast, non-destructive, and when we’re done, we’ll have a traceable health index of the cable segments we tested,” said Josh Waytowich, engineering project co-ordinator.
The segments involved were selected according to priority lists. When used in conjunction with Greater Sudbury Hydro’s comprehensive cable management program, the data generated will help with asset management decisions, optimizing capital spending and reducing the risk of outage-causing line failures.
