What Causes A Power Outage?
Electricity has become an indispensable part of modern life in just two centuries. Our livelihood, schools, hospitals, and businesses rely on a constant electricity supply. But have you ever wondered what causes a power outage and how the world around you would be without electricity?
A power outage can bring everything to a standstill, including working, entertaining, and being able to see. Read on to learn everything you need about the causes of power outages.
Causes of a Power Outage
Essentially, any interruption between the power generation plant and the power supply at your home can lead to a power outage. Stemming from extreme weather, human error, and system overload to scheduled maintenance, predicting the cause of a power outage can be daunting. Still, extreme weather, accidents, equipment failure, scheduled maintenance, and fallen trees are common causes of power outages.
The Most Common Cause of Power Outages: Severe Weather
Extreme heat, ice, storms, and snow are the most prevalent elements in causing power outages. In most cases, there's more than a single factor causing a power outage. Multiple aspects of severe weather may combine to cause a blackout. For example, extreme cold or heat can destroy equipment on the power grid. Lighting can strike a tree, causing branches or the whole tree to fall on the power lines. Heavy rains can cause mudslides and floods.
Motor Vehicle Accidents Near Power Lines
A motor vehicle accident near a power line that connects electricity in your local area can
Cause a blackout at your home. A car, truck, or farm machinery can veer off the road and hit a utility pole, bringing down power lines and equipment.
A slight loss of attention, driver impairment, or a slippery road is all it can take for an accident to happen near a power line, leading to a power outage. While this kind of random accident causes a power outage in a relatively small locality, you can spend days without electricity if your utility provider does not respond immediately.
Equipment Failure
Utility companies regularly inspect the power grid for efficient residential and commercial property supply. However, like any other equipment, the components on the power grid can wear out, break, or just malfunction. For instance, insulators can break from corrosion, and transformers can cause complications.
This shows there are multiple ways equipment can malfunction, contributing to many aspects of power outages.
Fallen Trees
If you reside in storm-prone areas, fallen trees along the roads may not surprise you. However, when trees fall on power lines, they can destroy equipment on the power grid, causing a blackout. Power lines along the road to your home are at the most risk of being struck by a tree branch. Heavy ice, snow, and extreme winds can cause trees along the power lines to snap, bringing down power lines and utility poles. You can also experience a random blackout when an old tree falls on the power line without warning.
Power Line Damage from Construction Work
Human error tops the list if you consider what causes a partial power outage. Power outage occurs too often due to preventable accidents. Construction workers accidentally cut through underground cables when digging near power lines. Construction equipment also knocks utility poles or cuts the power line, causing a partial power outage.
Since this is a leading cause of power outages, utility companies often erect landmarks to indicate underground powerlines.
Planned Power Outages
Utility companies often conduct maintenance operations on the power grid. What causes a power outage, in this case, is a scheduled operation rather than a random blackout. Your utility company will often notify you in advance about a planned power outage to conduct routine maintenance or replace equipment on the power grid.
Understand the Causes of a Power Outage with Nordic Energy Services LLC
Knowing what causes a power outage in your locality is essential. However, having a reliable ARES is even better. Nordic Energy Service LLC is a Chicago-based ARES and Alternative Gas Suppliers (AGS). Nordic supplies energy and related services to residential and commercial customers behind 46 utilities in Illinois and nine other states.
Image Credits: Scott Alan Ritchie/Shutterstock
About the author
Corey Mitchell
