Tips & News - November 2014

To help with the variance, HPS Territory Manager, Bryan Jones, recommended that SCE bring in Jim McDonald, a former HPS employee, to help with procedure writing, training, and tool review. McDonald has years of experience in bare-hand, live-line work. McDonald and Jones went through all of SCE’s tool trailers to make sure the utility had the right tools. Thismeant evaluating tools that were, in some cases, 30 years old. There were even some specialty tools from the 70’s and 80’s. Jones explains, “We inventoried all of their trailers and materials and then provided SCE with a list of items they needed, including some specialty yokes that are not standard catalog items. We also identified a large number of items that needed to be reworked and retested.” Unfortunately, no local companies could do the refurbishing work. So HPS worked with SCE to identify local companies that could be trained to do the work and arranged for those vendors to get training at an HPS facility. Historically, maintenance work was done while the lines were de-energized, but due to line laoding constraints, it is getting harder and harder to take transmission lines out of service.

Documentation SCE purchased training materials and manuals from McDonald to augment the materials they were preparing for the variance. McDonald also helped SCE document all the safety and work procedures it will use, including: • What voltages the variance applies to • How workers will be trained • Safety procedures • How worker safety will be monitored

• What tools will be used • How tools will be used • How the tools will be maintained • How the tools will be tested

Training With the variance mostly complete and under review by Cal OSHA, SCE turned its attention to training. Fortunately, while working on the variance, the utility was in the process of building a 500-kV training facility near an old power plant near Daggett, CA. Carbajal points out, “The facility is in the desert because the transmission world is bigger, taller, heavier… the toys are bigger. So, we needed space. We worked with our transmission training organization to put up four, 500-kV towers on a de-energized line section. Our plan is to use it for as much training as possible – helicopter, bare-hand, and hot sticking.”

By January 2015, SCE workers should

be ready to perform EHV bare-hand,

live-line work in the field. It took

three years of effort - working with

employees, vendors, and CAL OSHA

to get permission to do it.

Bare-handed, live-line training class at SCE’s Daggett training facility. The 'train the trainers’ class lasted three weeks. Almost all of it was hands-on. (NOTE: The line is de-energized.)

6 | HUBBELL POWER SYSTEMS