Down for safety: New PPL software shuts power to fallen wires, helps prevent electrocution deaths, injuries

Nov. 30--Chris Kiskeravage, a firefighter for 30 years in the Lehigh Valley, has seen his share of incidents involving downed power lines.

"The problem is electricity is always looking to reset," said Kiskeravage, who on Nov. 18 became South Whitehall Township fire commissioner after previous stints as a firefighter in Allentown and Easton.

But now PPL Electric Utilities says it has developed a "groundbreaking" method that can automatically and safely cut power to downed lines.

That's important because when a downed line remains energized, it can be fatal. Thomas Poynton Jr. of Williams Township was electrocuted in July 2016 in his backyard by a downed power line. State regulators are seeking more than $4.5 million from Met-Ed in that incident.

In other cases, energized lines can delay emergency responders trying to deal with a fire, winter storm and car crash as they wait for an electric utility crew to arrive to turn off power. Depending on the situation, it could be difficult or even dangerous to get utility workers close to the site of a downed wire.

PPL first turned off a downed line using the process in late February in remote woods in Monroe County, company spokesman Joe Nixon said, declining to be more specific.

"In the industry, we're not aware of any other similar technology," Nixon said.

He said the company has installed the system in about 1,500 locations, or two-thirds of its 29-county service territory, with plans to cover the entire region "within the next several years."

Turning off the power remotely and more quickly would allow first responders to deal faster with an emergency, according to Kiskeravage.

"If someone's vehicle is into a power line, we can't approach the car until PPL gets there," he said. "That would, for sure, expedite our ability to get to the rescue."

The PPL software is an algorithm created by company engineers that's built on a downed-wired detection system by Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories of Pullman, Washington.

The Schweitzer system, which includes a series of relays, tells PPL workers when a line has fallen off a pole or other part of the distribution network. But it doesn't cut off power, Nixon said.

"We wanted to go a step further with that," said Nixon, noting most times -- but not always -- power is cut when a line is affected, much like a circuit breaker in a home shuts down power.

"We said, 'Let's develop a system that safely and automatically cuts power to that line,'" he said.

David Costello, Schweitzer's chief sales and service officer, said the company's technology has been adapted and approved over the years by others in a field known as "downed conductor fault detection."

Experts such as Costello and others say the research has been going on for decades.

Jeffrey H. Feldman, an attorney in Farmington, Michigan, who has focused on electrocution cases around the country, said it appears PPL's work is a positive step for the industry.

"It's an important safety advancement, and it's important for the protection and people and property," Feldman said of PPL's work, adding he couldn't speak as an expert about the technology.

There have been about 250 electrocution deaths annually around the country in recent years, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2017, the CDC's Benjamin Haynes said, 254 deaths occurred. Feldman's law firm, which also cites the CDC, estimates electrical hazards cause about 4,000 injuries each year among the U.S. workforce.

Last month, during a quarterly earnings call, PPL President Gregory N. Dudkin said the company also sees potential for wider uses.

The software now covers when live wires fall to the ground, but PPL, which has a patent application before the U.S. Patent and Trade Office, believes it could work other times, such as when falling trees or branches hit power lines.

"The first application is to protect the public," Dudkin said, but it could also help in areas prone to wildfires.

In California, downed power lines have contributed to fires in recent months. California electricity providers have shut down power temporarily to millions of people to try to prevent more fires.

PPL says it has made rigorous efforts to ensure a resilient electric grid. It recently began using drones to patrol lower-voltage distribution lines to ensure the power keeps humming without interruptions. The company says its grid-reliability improvements have reduced the number of outages by 30% compared with 2011.

Nixon would not say how much PPL has spent on the downed line software, citing "proprietary" concerns.

"We've made a significant investment over a period of years in terms of manpower and testing," he said.

Despite the software, PPL doesn't plan to cut the number of emergency crews it uses during storms, he said.

Morning Call reporter Anthony Salamone can be reached at 610-820-6694 or [email protected].

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