P180.001 Overhead Assets
Wildlife Guard Research
Wildlife guards can be an effective means of improving reliability by preventing wildlife-caused outages, such as those caused by squirrels and birds. Ideally, a properly designed wildlife guard should last the life of the asset it is protecting. However, poorly designed wildlife guards may contribute toward reliability issues or exacerbate damage in the event of a flashover. Many utilities have experience significant line recloser damage caused by a wildlife guard that ignited during a flashover. EPRI has developed a test framework to evaluate wildlife guard performance, including its flame performance.
P180.002 Underground Assets
Heating of Crimp Connectors
Evaluation of one-way to one-way crimp connectors used in low-voltage secondary networks
MV Cable Accessory Research
Evaluation of 35-kV terminations
Structures
Research on causes; evaluation of mitigation options and monitoring systems
P180.003 Automation Assets
Cyber-Physical Security Demonstration for Distribution Automation Devices
Overview of Cyber-Physical Demonstration for DA devices
P180.004 Safety
Arc Flash Videos
EPRI and utility videos
Guarding Downed Conductors
Video for training workers guarding downed conductors
Identifying Patterns of Downed Conductors
Training for operators to identify patterns of live, downed conductors
Personnel Protection and Grounding for Underground Cables
Video covering personnel protection and grounding on underground cables
Proper Wear of Arc-Rated Clothing
Short video describing the importance of buttoning and tucking arc-rated FR shirts
Tests on Personnel Protection and Grounding on an Overhead Line
Video covering staged tests of personnel protection and grounding on an overhead line
Video on High-Impedance Faults and Downed-Conductor Detection
Background on research on downed conductors
Video on Vehicle Grounding and Ground Hazards around Distribution Circuits
Practical takeaways from tests and analysis of hazards at ground level
P180.005 Analytics
Cost Benefit
Economic Evaluation for Reliability and Resiliency Measures
Vegetation
Identification of At-Risk Trees Using Satellite Imagery
Wood Poles
Better understanding wood poles using industry wide data