Whitepaper about Wildlife Induced Outages on Overhead Lines and Substations

The world's demand for ever more reliable and cost-effective utility operations continues to accelerate, with downtime measured in minutes and seconds and penalised accordingly. Over the last 20 years, an increasing realisation within the industry has led to a better understanding that the external, generally uncontrolled, effects of wildlife are responsible for far more unplanned outages than previously acknowledged. As a result, wildlife and asset protection has become an area of increased interest, given that reducing unplanned outages improves efficiency.

Along with our better understanding of the challenges comes additional pressure from environmental bodies, which are mainly concerned with the risk of electrocution to wildlife. Historically, the crucial factor was the reliability of the electrical power provider, but today, both perspectives require consideration.

This paper addresses the wide range of applications in which wildlife regularly interact with our electrical network. We define the problem and illustrate the potential solutions using modern materials and designs to enhance reliability while protecting our wildlife. 

This paper is primarily concerned with the problems, costs, and long-term solutions arising from wildlife (birds and animals). It will highlight other sources where another medium caused the outage/damage, but the solution would be the same as if a bird or animal were the primary cause.