Pepco demonstrates a program that works

摘要

The vegetation management program at Pepco (Washington, D.C.) began with a simple routine operation of scheduled maintenance for trimming trees and clearing rights-of-way (R/Ws). Today, the extended process also involves an evaluation of trimming as it affects feeder reliability and a new meadow management program. In 1995 and 1996, trees caused 11% of Pepco's total primary sustained outages. Two-thirds of the outages were caused either by branches or by uprooted trees falling into the overhead conductors. Routine scheduled maintenance did not aggressively address these two problems. Therefore, those directly involved developed solutions to reduce these kinds of outages by eliminating overhanging limbs and removing trees that could cause outages.