Glendale Water & Power is a distinguished Reliable Public Power (RP3) Award recipient. That means we are really good at providing reliable power, by having fewer outages, quicker restoration times, and maintaining our infrastructure to continue to provide you with reliable power. We know outages are frustrating, and our crews are on standby 24-7 to restore power quickly. In fact our reliability is unmatched as our response time is faster than most other utilities. Once an outage is reported, our team pinpoints the location and cause of the outage and sends out crews to repair.
Below is an infographic and step by step process of how we restore your power:
- Repair Transmission Lines: High voltage lines that carry power from the city’s power source to substations serving thousands of customers. They rarely fail, but it is possible. Since trouble on a transmission line affects thousands of customers, it gets attention first.
- Substations: Point where high voltage is lowered to feed distribution lines. If we can fix the issue at the substation, we can get power back on for a large number of customers. Substations act as a distribution and switching station.
- Distribution or Feeder Lines: Lines that carry power to a large group of customers. This is our second priority. We patrol the individual lines, working our way down the system from the substation. Feeder lines serve 1,000 to 3,000 customers and are usually the lines affected when you hear of a power outage.
- Neighborhood Tap Lines: Lines that move power from feeder lines to individual streets. They feed pockets of 20-30 homes each.
- Individual Service Lines: Lines that serve individual homes and businesses. Repairing these lines takes the longest because sometimes damage can occur on the service line between your house and the transformer on the pole. This may be why your neighbor has power, but you don’t.
Even if there aren’t any power poles in your neighborhood, the same types of repairs will be made in the same order for underground vaults when there are power related issues.
Protection & Safety – We clear live power lines and repair equipment that poses a safety hazard first. The goal is to bring power back on to as many customers as possible while making repairs, with special attention given to certain critical facilities, like hospitals and police and fire stations. Lastly, the safety of our crews is also of utmost importance. As ready and reliable as they are, they work tirelessly through the night and at times need to reenergize, rest or have additional help come in so they perform the work safely.
