Ten ounces of relentless destruction. Never has there been something so small that is solely responsible for such tenacious annihilation of wood poles. The theory largely prescribed to in the utility industry that attempts to explain the woodpeckers’ attraction to utility poles is that wind on the conductors induces a subtle vibration on the pole. The woodpecker, ever the efficient hunter, then believes that there are carpenter ants or wood-boring beetle larvae – its main food – in the wood pole and it will stop at nothing to get that food. It is for this reason that remediation methods like fillers and wraps will never stop the resolute conviction of the pileated woodpecker. Those products are challenging and costly to install on wood poles, and only increase operation and maintenance expenses, and yet the woodpeckers relentlessly keep coming back over and over again. Once the damage is done, the wood pole is structurally compromised and the probability that the pole will fail in a high load event like a wind gust or an ice storm is dramatically increased. No wrap or pole filler will reinstate the structural capacity that is lost to a woodpecker hole. Break the cycle. RS composite poles eliminate the woodpecker threat. It’s that simple. “A woodpecker can destroy a wood pole in one day. Put in a composite pole and your problem is solved.” — Dave Whittier, Hydro One Download PDF

Kentucky experienced two “one-hundred-year storms” in a span of less than 5 months: Hurricane Ike hammered West Kentucky’s territory in September 2008, and in January 2009, a severe ice storm struck, causing $240 million in damage to jurisdictional utilities alone. West Kentucky Electrical Co-Operative (WKREC) was already in the process of a pilot evaluation of 10 RS poles when disaster struck. These high-performance RS poles went undamaged in the storm, and even carried the load of a neighboring steel pole when it collapsed. The superior resiliency and reliability demonstrated here provided unyielding confidence in RS poles – which are now used in the WKREC’s highest priority sections of their grid, including carrying the lines out of a new substation and a new 69kV transmission line. RS composite poles have now become the preferred solution at many utilities that are faced with increasing natural disasters including damaging high winds and ice storms. “You can’t beat the warranty. We like to use RS poles to harden our infrastructure in critical, high value locations.” — Steve Coltharp, West Kentucky Rural Electric Co-Operative Download PDF

In 2018, California’s Camp Fire was the largest fire on record in the U.S. causing over $16.5 billion in damage and burning 153,336 acres in 17 days. In 2020, there was the August Complex, a collection of 38 wildfires ignited by lightning strikes. Collectively, 1,032,648 acres were scorched in almost four months. Then the next year in 2021, there was the Dixie Fire. After 79 days of burning, it was 94% contained and had consumed 963,309 acres, or about 6.5 times the area burned by the Camp Fire. Fire sizes in the U.S. are growing at such a pace that a new term was required to denote fires that destroy 1 million acres of land: Gigafire. The world is changing. In the last five years, California has endured 13 of the 20 most destructive fires on record. Faced with this intensifying challenge and desperate to mitigate their fire threat risk, California’s utilities needed a pole that would not burn. RS composite poles do not support combustion so they were a natural consideration to the wildfire challenge, but that was not enough. Going back to 2011, RS was not satisfied with the UL94 and ASTM D635 coupon-level fire tests that the industry was using to gauge fire performance. While these tests worked well for their intended applications, they were not representative of a wildfire moving through a utility line right-of-way. Partnering with University of Alberta fire expert, Mark Ackerman, a full-scale test was developed which not only exposed an entire embedded pole to intense, unrelenting flame for 2-minute and 3-minute durations, a post-fire vertical full scale bend test was included to quantify any strength or stiffness loss. This test, known as the RS-Ackerman Fire Test, has now become the industry standard to which all California utilities use to evaluate a pole’s fire performance. Composite poles outperform wood poles in the fire test, making RS composite poles the safer choice for line crews and the public. Download PDF

Implementing storm-resistant solutions to minimize outages and strengthen grids against hurricanes and extreme winds. A significant development in Grand Bahama required a new 22 mile [35.4 km] 69kV line to be built. With frequent hurricane exposure, the project needed to push the limits of accepted overhead line storm resilience to reliably deliver service to the west end of the island. The island location presented many project challenges. Because of hurricanes, salt spray and soil pH corrosion of steel and concrete poles as well as logistical challenges and costly material handling, RS composite poles were selected as the best solution. Up to 65 ft. [19.8 m) lightweight, inert, and modular nesting composite poles can fit into standard sized 40 ft. intermodal shipping containers. Furthermore, RS poles have an 80-year service life, require no scheduled maintenance, and are covered by a 41-year warranty. In 2016, Grand Bahama was hit by Hurricane Matthew, a Category 4 storm with winds of 140 mph [62.2 m/s]. The island’s west end took a direct hit and about 10% of the island’s poles were downed, over 2,300 wood poles. As the restoration efforts continued, there was one observation that became clearer: the RS composite poles had stood strong during the hurricane. On September 1st, 2019, Category 5 Hurricane Dorian, packing winds gusts to 220 mph [98.3 m/s]. Dorian’s slow pace of 25 miles [40 km] in 24 hours resulted in damage of $7 billion. 1,000’s of wood poles were lost. A text message from Grand Bahama Power Vice President, Frank Woodworth, confirmed that the RS composite poles had survived. Again. RS composite poles mitigate the threat of hurricane damage and speed restoration efforts because the poles stand strong. Download PDF

The composite material used to manufacture RS poles absorbs significant elastic strain energy in high load situations which is designed to harden the grid and mitigate the threat of extreme weather events like tornadoes, hurricanes, wind bursts, and ice storms. Case in point, in December 2021, a series of record-setting tornadoes tore through Western Kentucky. After the tornadoes had passed Hopkinsville, within the service territory of Pennyrile RECC, over two miles of 13kV wood distribution poles laid on the ground from wind load induced cascade failure. Back in 2012, Pennyrile had installed three RS composite poles near a substation, and it was those same poles that stopped three different cascading wood pole failure events, preventing further damage to the system and protecting critical substation components. More than any other pole material type, you can count on RS composite poles to deliver resilient performance in critical grid hardening applications. “When tornadoes came through the Hopkinsville, KY area on December 10, 2021, over 2 miles of Pennyrile distribution line was affected. A large quantity of wood poles on the main line were destroyed and wire was on the ground. RS composite poles were also on this line and did not fail – in fact they supported the downed line overload until the wood poles could be replaced and the wire raised.” — John Cross, Pennyrile RECC Download PDF