Electricity Today T&D Magazine

Distinctly Different

According to the American Public Power Association, squirrels are among the top causes of power outages across the United States. The Great Lakes region has squirrels as the #1 cause of sustained outages. And in many cases, bird related outages are at number two.
Nobody likes to admit that it’s a problem. The most common answer when you ask about how you deal with squirrels is: “I just get my gun”. Of course, that answer is always spoken in jest, and usually followed up with something along the lines of “that’s kind of frowned on around here”.
The reality is that there are a myriad of ways to go about animal mitigation. One of the most obvious places to concentrate animal mitigation efforts is the substation, where high value assets need high uptime, without having to worry about a pesky critter. And if you’re trying to keep an...