Case Study
Protection is in our nature
TE Connectivity (TE) supports ÖBB, the Austrian Federal Railways, preserving a threatened owl specie from fatal electric shock while preventing power outages on their network with rugged, reliable and easy to install Raychem Wildlife and Asset Protection products.
Pioneer in Wildlife and Asset Protection
To contribute to the conservation of the rare eagle owls, ÖBB took the initiative to insulate the 50 kilometers of affected power poles to protect the raptors from fatal electric shocks while eliminating the outages on the network.
As a pioneer and a leader in the power distribution protection industry, TE Connectivity was able to offer a reliable solution to protect both wildlife and assets.
The Challenge
Due to the challenging environmental conditions in this region characterized by heavy snow falls, ÖBB was looking for insulating covers that could withstand high humidity and high variation of temperature. For this project, reliability was the most important feature.
The solutions had to provide a complete insulation to avoid short circuits causing damage to the wildlife and the utility´s systems.
16800
Bird Covers ordered
500 km
of track insulated
650
Breeding pairs of eagle owls to preserve
The Solution
Based on decades of experience, TE´s experts offered a Wildlife and Asset Protection solution that meets the customer´s technical and environmental challenges:
- TE's Raychem red BCIC Bird Protection Covers
- Onsite testing of the bird covers on the customer´s insulators by TE´s local engineers
ÖBB observed a significant reduction in the failure rate along the protected line of 50 km, and thus decided to expand the application of protective covers to 10 times more than the initial project: moving from 50 km to 500 km in 5 years.
The Outcome
With extensively tested, rugged and versatile bird covers, TE helps ÖBB to successfully eliminate outages on its network ensuring a better service for their customers, while protecting the threatened eagle owls.
The smart design of the hot-stickable distribution covers, enabled the fast and easy installation of the products without requiring any type of training for the customer.
