Eversource Offers Information on Its Vegetation Management Practices

Source: Eversource

In advance of its April 14 Public Meeting in Amherst on clearcutting for powerlines, Eversource has provided the following information:

• The transmission system is the highway of the electric grid. It carries high-voltage electricity from power generation sources to the lower-voltage distribution system that supplies power to homes and businesses. Eversurce manages vegetation in and along more than 2,300 miles of transmission right-of-way corridors through Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire.
  
• Eversource proactively maintains vegetation in a multi-year cycle to enhance reliability and prevent outages.  We maintain cleared areas around transmission lines within our right of way corridors. These areas are designed to maintain a safe distance between lines and the surrounding vegetation. We also use this space for fast access whenever inspection, maintenance, or repairs are needed. The amount of minimum clearance needed between electric transmission wires and vegetation depends on voltage, line height, distance between structures, topography, height of trees species at maturity and the sway of trees and the line. 
  
• Eversource’s Transmission Right-of-Way Reliability Program (TRRP) is a long-term vegetation maintenance initiative to improve electric system reliability and resiliency by expanding and maintaining wider transmission corridors —up to 100 feet from the outermost conductors or the easement edge, whichever is closer.  It involves removing tall-growing trees within the corridor from the outermost conductor or to the edge of the fee/easement. The company plans to work a 100-foot Modified Alternative, which includes clearing trees up to 100 feet from the outer conductor, except in specific areas where this width could be reduced due to a low risk of tree fall-in. By reducing tree fall-in risks and managing vegetation as early successional habitat (grasses, forbs, small trees, and shrubs), the vegetation management program supports improvements to reliability of the regional electric grid, reducing outage risks-especially during severe weather-and improving safety and continuity of essential services.
  
• “Electric Transmission is regulated by federal government.
  • In Massachusetts, vegetation management plans are reviewed and approved annually by state and federal environmental regulators before work begins”

Additional information from Eversource on Vegetation Management, can be found here.