utility guys; what is this?

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To make the conductors safe for working on.

In one of the areas we service the utility distributes at 39KV and will not work it hot, they shut it down and ground it out.
 
iwire said:
To make the conductors safe for working on.

In one of the areas we service the utility distributes at 39KV and will not work it hot, they shut it down and ground it out.
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So, the lines were dead when i took this picture? I figured those were insulators on the end of that cable.
 
iwire, if you look closely, I think they look like the surge suppressors our poco has been using the past couple of years, They seem to be a basic arc gap type. Usually when they use the grounds, it has a tag hanging off of it saying "grounded"
 
brantmacga said:
So, the lines were dead when i took this picture? I figured those were insulators on the end of that cable.
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most likley. Utiity company will not take any chances on back-feed anymore in my area also. It only takes one person with a generator or PV that has a illegal set-up that can kill an innocent Lineman. What is strange is that they rely on tying those gounds to the Guy wire support stakes. I did not realize those stakes could handle a fault.
 
hillbilly1 said:
iwire, if you look closely, I think they look like the surge suppressors our poco has been using the past couple of years, They seem to be a basic arc gap type. Usually when they use the grounds, it has a tag hanging off of it saying "grounded"
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I say they are lightning arrestors, too. We have them around here, too.

The grounding jumpers I've seen just have clamps on both ends that can be opened and closed with the hot-stick.
 
LarryFine said:
Not the stake, the top end. They're solidly bonded to the neutral on the pole.
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HUH neutral on the pole!
What if you have no nuetral but three phase conductors.
And I did see the Lineman ground to the Guywire stake.
 
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And I did see the Lineman ground to the Guywire stake.
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I don't see it that well ???? ... Not unusuall...

Solidly Grounded/Bonded... A Crew member of POCO noted once, That's not a Ground, that's a Neutral, Via the NEC, I chuckled... :D
 
Sierrasparky said:
HUH neutral on the pole!
What if you have no nuetral but three phase conductors.
And I did see the Lineman ground to the Guywire stake.
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the conductor they are connected to is still a MGN (multi-grounded neutral) if the supply is from a delta at the sub station, they will use what is called a zig-zag transformer to derive a referance to the ungrounded conductors to give them a fault path back to the sub station, so yes that conductor will handle a fault to it from one of the line conductors. here they put a zig-zag about every mile, I think, but most of our feeds are from a Y circuit, but our 69kv lines are delta, which feed the local sub stations.
 
eric9822 said:
I thought they were grounds as well. Thanks from me as well.
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iwire said:
Thanks, I learned something new.
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I don't think these have been around very long, I noticed them a couple of years ago, I think, seems to be a cheap and quick way to do surge protection, especially with everything going pad mount transformers. They used to have arc gap protectors at the top of the pole mount transformers. The guy that has the patent on them is probably doing well right now. One of those "Wow, I could have thought of that" ideas!
 
They are lightning arrestors. Alabama Power and Georgia power use them. At least that is what a lineman in Demorest Georgia told me the last time I took my daughter back to College.
 
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