Before the first traces of winter weather roll into Texas, Oncor has been preparing our employees, inspecting our power lines and prepping our equipment for ice, snow and extreme low temperatures.

“The whole intent of our winter preparedness is really to make sure that we catch anything that needs to be repaired before the winter time and to make sure that our system is fully ready for the extreme weather that we might have,” said Alex Machoka, Senior Director, Transmission Operations.

He said Oncor makes regular helicopter and drone inspections of its transmission lines throughout the year to help identify issues not visible through other methods.

The company also inspects equipment like transformers using infrared cameras. Employees also take samples of the oil inside transformers. Chemical analysis of the oil can indicate a potential problem, so Oncor can replace the equipment before it fails.

Megan Stoub, Director, Distribution, Southeast Region, said Oncor employees constantly perform visual inspections of our equipment to identify potential issues.

“Whether it’s in the extreme winter conditions or summer conditions, we are looking for solutions and proactively addressing these before they become a concern,” Stoub said.

In the last several years, Stoub said, Oncor has invested in an array of distribution automation technologies to improve the resilience of the distribution network. “With these smart technologies, we have been able to reduce outages from what could have been hours down to minutes,” she said.

Falling tree limbs and branches are a significant cause of power outages in the winter. Trees and limbs can be weighed down by accumulating ice and then fall into power lines and poles, triggering an outage.

To help prevent that, Oncor works throughout the year to trim trees and vegetation away from our power lines and equipment, said Scott Lee, Manager, Vegetation Management.

“Our ultimate goal is to provide safe and reliable electric service,” Lee said. “We’re trying to prevent outages from happening before they happen. We’ll trim a little over 3,000 miles this year using that planned maintenance program.”

Whatever the season, Oncor also closely watches the weather, said James Blanton, Senior Director, Distribution Engineering. The company employs its own certified meteorologist.

“As we’re monitoring the weather, we’re actually days in advance getting ready for a potential event,” Blanton said.

“We are always watching the weather,” Stoub said. “We always know when we need to be prepared to respond and we’re ready whenever it hits.”