Steps to Restoring Power
In order to restore power properly due to an outage, Tri-County EMC proceeds with the following order of priorities:
1. Transmission Lines
Transmission towers and cables that supply power to transmission substations (and thousands of members) rarely fail. But when damaged, these facilities must be repaired before other parts of the system can operate.
2. Substations
- Substations are electrical facilities that contain equipment for switching or regulating the voltage of electricity
- A problem within a substation could cause all of the members being served from that substation to be without electric service
- If the problem is limited to one particular circuit leaving the substation, only those members on that specific circuit would be without electric service
- A problem of this nature could interrupt electric service to several thousand members
3. Main Distribution Lines
- These are the 7,200 to 14,400-volt lines that you see along roadways that carry power from the substation
- Each line serves a portion of consumers from the substation
- A problem on a specific line could leave hundreds of consumers without electric service
4. Tap Lines
- Tap lines are electric feeder lines with limited capacity that run from a main distribution line to a few members
- A fault on a tap line would interrupt service to those members being served by that line only
- If the break on the tap line was repaired, the members on that tap line would still be without power until the main line is repaired
5. Individual Service
- This the line that runs from the transformer to your meter
- A problem here would only affect the electric service to an individual member, while the remaining system would still have electric service