At the moment we have deicated teams in cartain areas of our patch, kept busy just replacing the earthing cable (70mm Copper). I have just finished an S/S refurb that has had its earthing stolen three times in the past two months.....we are tending to replace the copper with flat aluminium earth tape which is less appealing to the culprits as its value is lower than copper....Its also becoming apparent that some of the thieves actually may have keys to the substations and as Westie points out they know what theyre doing and have a knowledge of what they can and cant touch.....However some of the thieves dont know what they are doing and one of the latest thefts involved dragging a LIVE 11000/415V transformer out of a sub whilst still connected...luckily for them it tripped out!!!!
Confessions of a DNO engineer!
- Thread starter westie101
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Had to explain to the police earlier that one of the accused's statements "it couldn't have been me cutting the cable as if I had I would not be here" was untrue!
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We've had inspection plates taken off HV switchgear & transformers (one case interrupted supply to about 25,000 customers!)
Switchgear tipped over, overhead lines cut down, poles cut down causing lines to trip and conductor stolen.
In the Cumbria floods of 2009 we had one section of line damaged and on the ground so disconnected it, 2 days later the conductor had gone
Some of this is not new, I recall 30 years ago a lot of earth wire being stolen from pylons by climbing them and cutting it down.
Switchgear tipped over, overhead lines cut down, poles cut down causing lines to trip and conductor stolen.
In the Cumbria floods of 2009 we had one section of line damaged and on the ground so disconnected it, 2 days later the conductor had gone
Some of this is not new, I recall 30 years ago a lot of earth wire being stolen from pylons by climbing them and cutting it down.
Oh and Holmslaw and BAS, I'm most disappointed with your posts. 
It took far too long for them to appear
It took far too long for them to appear
A couple of years ago a large 4x4 was seen driving along a road dragging two long lengths telephone cable behind it that it had just pulled out of a manhole.
I have a relative who works for one of the electric companies. Apart from all the above, they've also had (bronze) valves removed from transformer tanks. In one case, the on-call engineer arrived after one had caused an alarm and tripped ... just in time to see the last of the oil running out of the other transformer. IIRC these were 132kV/33kV on the supply side of the substation.
As said above, the cost of the damage caused by these thefts is considerable, yet the value of the scrap metal may be very little. In this case, a few pounds of bronze could have caused a large and expensive transformer to need replacing. And then there was that case (last year ?) where someone nicked the neutral link from a substation down Manchester way - and caused all sorts of damage and fires to residential customers getting exceptionally high supply voltages.
As said above, the cost of the damage caused by these thefts is considerable, yet the value of the scrap metal may be very little. In this case, a few pounds of bronze could have caused a large and expensive transformer to need replacing. And then there was that case (last year ?) where someone nicked the neutral link from a substation down Manchester way - and caused all sorts of damage and fires to residential customers getting exceptionally high supply voltages.
And a few pounds of bronze is worth a few pounds.
Did this happen in the wigan area?
we lost our electricity supply because 2 valves were stolen from the oil cooling system on the transformers feeding a large area.
http://www.wigantoday.net/news/thieves_cause_power_outage_1_2622775
And this is where the neutral link was nicked
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ters-called-71-homes-massive-power-surge.html
Andy
Radio, yes that was the Wigan incident,
H
holmslaw
..
The two persons that started this off are being prosecuted for theft - the steel pipes and criminal damage - the cable.
Statement number two made today explaining why one of them wasn't killed!
Statement number two made today explaining why one of them wasn't killed!
It's a pity they weren't badly burnt as that would have been a better punishment than the courts could dish out.
Anyway nice one westie it must have been strange explaining why someone was not killed,I do wonder if they knew what was in the pipes.
Andy
Anyway nice one westie it must have been strange explaining why someone was not killed,I do wonder if they knew what was in the pipes.
Andy
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