Electricity Today T&D Magazine

Reflections:

Nearly twenty years ago when I got into the energy business, reliability was a second-tier design objective for most transmission engineers. Safety factors had already been established and the materials we used for structures and powerline wires (conductors) were well known. While demand for electricity wasn’t growing at a super rapid pace, many existing transmission lines were congested – meaning they couldn’t deliver power from the lowest cost source of generation. While that didn’t bother everyone (the money was going somewhere), over time grid operators began putting pressure on utilities to increase line capacity to reduce the cost of power to consumers.
This is when (actually slightly earlier than my arrival), conductor manufacturers began selling high-temperature, low-sag “HTLS” conductors such as ACSS (Aluminum Conductor Steel Supported) which in theory could carry about twice the current of conventional ACSR (Aluminum Conductor Steel Supported) conductor due to the fact that it...