Mutual Assistance Planning for Transmission Line Emergencies

This paper discusses the formation of Regional Transmission Line Mutual Assistance Groups designed to allow power suppliers to help each other in the event of a transmission line emergency. Transmission line failures, though not widely publicized, will occur. Keeping the disruption of service to a minimum, and thus increasing the reliability of the system, is important. The ideal situation is to never have a forced outage; however, it is impossible to either predict or control the acts of nature. In addition, transmission lines and the power they deliver have become symbols of authority, and as such, have become targets of acts of vandalism. By having a complete and tested working plan to deal with these uncontrollable acts the power supplier will at least minimize their effect on the power system.