Tuktoyaktuk wants its own power line technician
Two-member team required to repair lines, says power corp
Kassina Ryder
Northern News Services
Published Monday, December 23, 2013
TUKTOYAKTUK
Tuktoyaktuk wants its own power line technician located in the community, but the territory's power corporation says it's simply not feasible.
Outgoing Tuktoyaktuk mayor Merven Gruben said the community wants its own technician to respond to emergency situations similar to the one they faced earlier this month.
Gruben said a blizzard and high winds knocked out power to about 25 units in the community on Dec. 8, including both of its stores.
Due to the weather, flights weren't able to land in Tuktoyaktuk from Inuvik, so technicians didn't arrive until about 10 p.m. that night, Gruben said.
Power wasn't fully restored until about 7 a.m. the next morning.
He said fortunately, the weather was only about - 2 C when the power went out. It dropped to about -25 C on Dec. 16.
Gruben said the incident highlighted the need to have a power line technician stationed in Tuk.
"It just makes sense, with Tuk expanding it's time to get our own line people in Tuk," he said.
Gruben said he believes at least one current NTPC staff member who lives in Tuktoyaktuk would be interested in taking the training required to become a certified power line technician.
Gruben said that training could take place in Tuk.
"A thing they could do is bring the training course to the town," he said.
But David Duncan, director of transmission and distribution for the Northwest Territories Power Corporation, said a team of two qualified journeymen power line technicians is required to perform procedures on high voltage systems, including power lines.
"You have to have somebody to assist and 'qualified' means they know how to work in energized areas," he said.
"That's a requirement. That's nothing we can get around."
Duncan said NTPC employees in remote communities are trained to deal with most situations that occur.
"The individual that's stationed in the remote community is trained to do work in terms of re-fusing certain devices like the transformer and is trained in performing line patrols and identifying problems, so in some cases they are able to restore power," he said.
"They do some of that work, but it's limited, mainly because we have to have two qualified people. That's the nature of working on high voltage distribution facilities."
In an emergency situation requiring more specialized work than local NTPC staff are trained to perform, a power line technician team is flown into the community. Teams are located in Inuvik, Fort Smith, Yellowknife and Fort Simpson, Duncan said.
Duncan said in smaller communities, it's not feasible to employ two power line technicians.
He said because the systems in remote communities are small, there simply wouldn't be enough work to employ two power line technicians full time.
"For the benefit of all of our customers, keeping their costs down, we have to centralize our line crew operations," he said.
Having line repair teams in four central locations is the best way to ensure they can reach any of the territory's remote communities in a timely manner, Duncan added.
"I really couldn't see any other way of doing it, with 26 remote communities you have to centralize your workforce so that they can respond in all directions," he said.
