Each year, TransGard tracks hundreds of substation outages caused by climbing animals and birds to compile our list of the worst outages of the year.
This year was special in that COVID-19 closures and restrictions made system reliability even more critical than in the past. That made power outages and service interruptions an even more important challenge than ever.
And, as you’ll see, even though many businesses experienced a slowdown in activity due to social distancing – the animals were hard at work.
Here is TransGard’s list of the Six Worst Outages for 2020 — each involving costly repairs and damaged reputations for utilities and substation operators:
This list represents a fraction of all animal-caused outages, many unreported, at substations in every region and climate of North America. While some substation operators take steps to prevent animal incursions, thousands of at-risk substations remain unprotected.
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