The danger of high voltage overhead lines in the urban environment

Abracopel (Brasilian Association for Awareness of the Electricity Dangers), announced that of the total of 627 deaths due to electrical accidents that occurred in Brasil in 2014, 109 were due to the overhead distribution network, of which 63 involved painters and bricklayers, when their equipment (scaffolds), touched the electrical network.

Most likely, those people knew that they were close to the overhead power grid, but they were not provided with resources to safely perform their tasks, such as: de-energizing the power grid, isolating energized parts, using appropriate PPE, etc. And, as their employers were not in the "electrical" segment, they probably haven't even heard of "NR-10", the Brasilian Regulatory Standard by the Ministry of Labor and Employment, which defines the legal safety requirements for electrical services.

Due to the large number of victims in the last 100 years, it is clear that the solution is not as simple as to require victims to "plan the activity with preliminary risk analysis". For example, in situations such as: a car hitting a pole, and children flying kites, it is impractical to carry out a "risk analysis". Insisting on this speech demonstrates that not the slightest attention is being paid to avoiding future destroyed families.

Note: in addition to drivers having a driver's license, respecting signs, etc., car manufacturers are REQUIRED to equip cars with seat belts and air bags, to avoid deaths! In other words, it has already been proven that it was not enough for you to be a good driver: the car had to provide better safety conditions!

Likewise, high voltage overhead lines with bare cables MUST provide safety conditions, modernizing their design to include devices such as: protection against accidental contact and cable break sensor to promote de-energization of the section - at least in the urban environment. This is the measure to be taken to stop the deaths!

Note that we are not proposing to transform aerial networks into underground ones, but rather to improve the current specifications, to provide aerial networks with protection devices with the aim of ending the occurrence of completely preventable deaths!

This improvement has a huge universe of beneficiaries, such as: antenna installers, painters using scaffolds, passengers in vehicles that collide with poles, revelers on Carnival floats and many others! How many more deaths will we have to endure until the design specifications of medium voltage overhead lines in the urban environment are modernized, using current technology to preserve lives? And this is no "favor", as Brasilian Law 8987/1995 provides in its Chapter II, art. 6th. that: "§ 1st Adequate service is one that satisfies the conditions of regularity, continuity, efficiency, safety, timeliness, generality, courtesy in its provision and reasonable rates"

As we are dealing with a technically precarious system, using uninsulated cables, designed more than a century ago with the sole aim of being cheap, the simplistic and cowardly stance of blaming the victims for their deaths is unacceptable!

Civil society entities must demand that ANEEL (Brasilian Agency of Electrical Energy), enforces Law 8987/1995 and demands the implementation of the necessary improvements to preserve lives!

Protection technology against high impedance faults using special relays is available (is worth to say that a Brasilian technology is also available [3]), but there are others, which should give rise to a specific resolution from ANEEL so that Law 8987/1995 is fully followed by the energy utilities.

References:

[1] Rangel Jr., Estellito. Four more deaths due to the medium voltage overhead network using bare cables! [Portuguese]. Available at: https://bit.ly/2AK49RL, accessed in March 2015.

[2] Brasil, Law 8987/1995. [Portuguese]: https://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/Leis/L8987compilada.htm

[3] UFU develops equipment for use in electricity distribution networks with the aim of saving lives. [Portuguese]. Comunica UFU Portal, at: https://comunica.ufu.br/node/17987 accessed on 4/28/2021.

For citing this article:

RANGEL Jr., Estellito. The danger of high voltage overhead lines in the urban environment,1ed. Rio de Janeiro, 27 Dec. 2023. LinkedIn: @Estellito. Available at: https://lnkd.in/dsYta7QQ