Curious Animals Can Damage Electric Systems

Proper maintenance is one of the most important keys to making sure the power doesn't go out during the next big storm. Regular utility inspections are required to make sure the lines and power poles haven't been damaged by time, weather, and critters such as squirrels, rodents, birds, and other animals.

Types of Problems to Look for During a Utility Inspection

Power outages occur often as the result of damage to the lines, poles, and transponders from animal damage. The type of damage animals do to the lines, poles, and transformers depends on the animal and the location of the pole. Throughout the years, there have been many strange incidents that revolved around power outages that were ultimately linked to animals.

While it seems like Cern's Large Hadron Collider would be the type of place that wouldn't encounter critter damage, in 2016, a weasel chewed through a power cable, which resulted in the entire scientific facility losing power.

38,000 people in Seattle lost power after a local raccoon made its way into a power substation. The raccoon started meddling with items in the substation, which caused the feeder lines that ran out of the station to fail. It took two hours for the utility company to restore the power. The raccoon escaped the substation and was believed to be unharmed.

Chickens don't normally cause much trouble for utility companies; however, the utility company in charge of keeping the power flowing to the Kahului Airport discovered an outage was caused when a chicken found its way into a transformer.

Animals chewing on lines and blowing up transformers are not the only ways critters can cause headaches for utility companies. In Japan, piles of pigeon droppings built up in an electric substation, creating problems that included losing power to multiple traffic lights, homes, and businesses.

Protect Utility Components with Critter Guard

Critter Guard wants to see the number of critter-caused power outages drop to zero, so we have devised a system to protect utility poles, electrical lines, substations, and transformers from the animals that create so many electrical problems. Contact Critter Guard and learn how our protective system decreases the amount of time and money utility companies currently dedicate to repairing critter damage.