Lowest Liability Case Study
SUMMARY
Rio Grande Electric Cooperative (RGEC) had just completed building a new distribution line when it suffered a direct hit by a tornado.
PROBLEM
RGEC lost eight of the newly installed 40 ft. (12.2 m) CL3 wood distribution poles causing power outages for customers in serviced by the line.
RS POLE SOLUTION
- The high-performance RS poles used on portions of the line where the tornado hit stood strong withstanding the tornado and demonstrated their grid hardening qualities.
“A tornado touched down in Lajitas on October 7th. We had pad mounted transformers and junction boxes swept completely off their pads! We lost eight 12.19 m CL 3 wooden poles on our brand-new Study Butte-Lajitas 34.5kV 3Ø line. These were snapped like toothpicks two feet above the ground. RGEC Operations reported that the RS composite poles that we installed in the area ‘did not budge at all.”
Dan Laws, CEO & General Manager
Rio Grande Electric Cooperative
