Helicopters Used to Upgrade Ohio Transmission Lines
Image courtesy of Andrei Zverev under Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic License, resized to 700 x 391 pixels.
A FirstEnergy subsidiary recently upgraded 16 miles of Ohio transmission lines via helicopter! The subsidiary, American Transmission Systems (ATSI), utilized the choppers to string new wires. The upgrades are designed to carry increased power flow and should provide a boost to reliability in the area.
How the Ohio Transmission Lines Were Upgraded
Overall, ATSI owns or maintains over 8,000 miles of transmission infrastructure. This most recent enhancement was made to two 138-KV lines connected to 2 substations and 119 transmission towers, traversing a 16-mile stretch of Northeast Ohio that serves 5,000 customers of FirstEnergy subsidiary The Illuminating Co.
In addition to running the new wires, helicopter crews were used to install new insulators and other components along the way. The company said that it decided to utilize helicopters because they are able to perform the work more effectively and efficiently compared to ground-level workers. The total cost of the project was around $16 million.
This was just the latest upgrade the company has made recently. In 2023, ATSI enhanced two 138-KV lines along an 8-mile route, with a second phase expected to launch in the second half of 2024. The project stems from Energize365, a “multi-year grid evolution program” aiming to invest $26 billion into the T&D system from now until 2028.
I definitely applaud these efforts because, as you know, greater reliability generally equals fewer unplanned power outages. And from what I can gather, FirstEnergy is one of the more proactive and innovative companies in this regard – the utilization of helicopter crews is one such example. As an added bonus, FirstEnergy is a massive company (10 electric distribution companies serving customers across 6 states), and so its efforts can help set a good example for other electric utilities.
The bottom line is that this stretch of Ohio transmission lines is now better than before – and that’s a huge win in my book.
