Tampa Electric invested more than $180M on system strengthening ahead of hurricane season

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Published on June 01, 2023 by Chris Galford

Last year, Tampa Electric invested more than $180 million into system strengthening measures to improve its grid's chances against severe weather – and with hurricane season officially starting this month, its efficacy will likely soon be put to the test.

Hurricane season runs from June 1 through November 30. These storms can and have inflicted massive damage over time, and there will never be a means of fully protecting against their capabilities, but utilities have found ways of reducing the possibilities and length of power outages over time.

In Tampa Electric's case, the last year saw this take the form of nearly 1,000 distribution poles and more than 500 transmission structures either strengthened or replaced, inspections of nearly 36,000 wooden power poles and the trimming of branches and tree limbs alongside more than 3,000 miles of power lines. Further, the company is actively installing self-healing technology along its system, allowing for the automatic isolation of outages and routing of power around the problem, minimizing the impact to customers and workers alike, as well as shortening restoration time.

Reportedly, the latter technology has brought with it a reduction to outages and flickers of power of more than 50 percent.

Going forward, Tampa Electric continues to follow its Storm Protection Program, which includes stepping up the frequency of tree trimming, converting up to 100 miles of overhead lines to underground lines per year, raising equipment or building flood walls at substations, and installing stronger poles and improved technology – like the self-healing tech – for certain power lines.

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