ECN Forum Forums Photo Discussion Forums Photos for General Discussion 33 kV Pole on its Side

Some photo's I took during a recent storm we had in Auckland on the 24 th January 2006. This 33 / 11 kV pole blew over because of digging nearby about 100 metres from our Albany depot. I heard the actual bang from our local 33 / 11 kV substation which is on our POCO site.
The 11 kV and 230 / 400 Volts were still live. Also the streetlights were still on as were the hotwater pilots
This was at Bush rd, Albany, New Zealand.


From the Siemens depot driveway about 3 minutes after it happened.
The metal fence was alive at 230 Volts. The 11 kV line was still live. The 33 kV tripped




Closer view, as you can see from the lower crossarm which supposed to have 6 wires on it 2 are missing and 3 on the other side of the pole. In NZ we use 3Ø 230 / 400 Volts for power, and 2 control wires called pilots. One for hotwater control, the other for streetlights.




Hole about 1.5 meters deep. The ironical thing is that these lines are in the process of being converted to underground supply and the project manager didn't think of bracing the pole before the storm.




Contactors in light brown box. Note the missing, broken insulators on the LV.




Different angle




Lucky that the metal fence supported the pole otherwise it would have come down fully and snapped all the wires




Streetlight back on again.



To do the temporay patch up, the pole was straightened up and a hiab was holding it into place. I was called out for other storm duties as emergency switching etc.