Alabama Power takes to the sky to upgrade lines for customers
Lineworkers lowered by helicopter perform maintenance and upgrades to Alabama Power lines near Attalla. (Mark Kelly / Alabama News Center)
By car, the trip from Attalla to Albertville is less than a half-hour through the tapering Appalachian foothills of northeast Alabama. As the crow flies, in the old Alabama idiom for the shortest flight between two fixed points, the distance is not quite 20 miles.
Josh Stough, construction field manager for Alabama Power. (contributed)
In preparing for the maintenance and updating of transmission lines and equipment between Attalla and Albertville, Alabama Power took a page from the crow’s book. The rolling landscape of hills and hollows between the two towns is some of Alabama’s most beautiful scenery, but very challenging terrain for conducting major work on power lines and other structures, noted Josh Stough, construction field manager for Alabama Power.
Completing the job conventionally, with numerous lineworkers and support personnel, trucks of various sizes and other vehicles, would require a substantial commitment of time and resources. To reduce costs and other impacts of moving people and equipment structure-by-structure along the 20-mile easement, the decision was made to use a helicopter.
First, the helicopter helped change out 36 existing poles for new ones. Then, it strung new static and fiber lines, unspooling it from structure to structure along the string of 113 towers and poles between Atalla and Albertville. Finally, the helicopter transported lineworkers and the equipment needed to complete the process of connecting and securing the newly strung lines.
The project started in early October and is expected to wrap up before the end of this month. According to Stough, the time savings alone made “the bird” the right choice for the job.
An Alabama Power lineworker is lowered onto a power structure by helicopter. (Mark Kelly / Alabama News Center)
“It’s about time and access,” Stough explained. “The difficulty of any job varies with the type of terrain involved. In this terrain, bringing in the helicopter cuts the job time to about half of what it would have been if we’d done it conventionally.
“It made sense to use the bird.”
To illustrate the cost considerations that drove the decision to use the privately operated helicopter, Stough pointed to the time and expense involved in simply moving lineworkers from structure to structure over varied terrain.
“They have to climb each structure, get the work done, get back down and move on to the next structure,” said Stough. “Compare that to being flown in and set down on a tower, then picked up and flown to the next structure as soon as the work on that one is done. You can see how that adds up.”
Greg Ray, senior line inspector for Alabama Power. (contributed)
In addition to navigating the terrain, the helicopter helped reduce time and disruption in crossing an interstate highway, several state and county thoroughfares and two railroads. With it came other benefits for Alabama Power, its customers and the entire state, said Greg Ray, senior line inspector for Alabama Power. Ray coordinated the helicopter’s work from the ground and, in Stough’s words, “put eyes on every structure” from the air to complete the project.
“The helicopter helped us to minimize the impact of doing this work, in terms of erosion,” Ray pointed out. “Erosion is unavoidable when you have to bring in people and vehicles, and that always needs to be taken into consideration when you’re thinking about costs.”
Ray noted that the project also involved installing “sleeves” on connections at key points along the line. The sleeves reduce the possibility of line breaks that would require dispatching vehicles and personnel to the site, not to mention the impacts to customers experiencing outages caused by broken lines.
Along with the project’s other challenges and benefits came the opportunity to work with the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and other electric providers. Etowah County, where Attalla is located, is in Alabama Power’s service territory, but folks in Albertville and Marshall County are not served by the company. Working on the lines, accessing rights of way and dealing with landowners in connection with the project required high degrees of planning, cooperation and communication, particularly with TVA, whose lines intersect with Alabama Power lines near Albertville.
“We established direct telecommunications between Alabama Power, TVA and our subcontractors working on the project,” said Stough. “Having that capability with TVA will continue to be a big plus as we deal with maintenance.”
Stough has been with Alabama Power since 2000 and in his current role for a decade. Ray joined the company in 2006 and is in his seventh year as a line inspector. Both view the Atalla-to-Albertville project as a great example of Alabama Power’s commitment – and that of the company’s Power Delivery organization – to serving customers and communities where they live and work. Keeping the lights on, to coin a phrase.
“What is the impact on reliability?” Ray said, posing the question that underlies every project. “What are we doing to make sure people and businesses have electricity when they need it?”
“It’s all about reliability,” Stough agreed. “Cutting down outage times. Tying together the fiber grid. Enhancing communications capabilities and response times in storm restoration and other emergencies. Performing maintenance and making upgrades.
“All of these are things we work on every day – things that help us deliver the reliable service our customers expect.”
