Hey Brad,
I was driving down Rt 13 today, as I do every day, and I am really surprised by the new highish voltage power lines being added. The road is now lined with what appears to be marching men and it looks like this is going straight through the heart of the New Glasgow? Was there any community consultation on these new poles, ie, how they would affect the residents, and the business, that will be affected by these marching men? Do you know if at least they will they be taking down the old electrical poles and putting the lines all on one pole so we don’t have marching men all the way down through the village and in to Cavendish?
RESPONSE FROM MARITIME ELECTRIC
Brad met with Maritime Electric to get the following details.
From the new substation on Bagnall Road there are three circuits being fed. The objective is to transfer some load from the Hunter River and Rattenbury Rd substations to the new Bagnall Rd substation.
These are not high-voltage lines – but distribution lines.
All three circuits are going to be 3-phase – that means three lines in each.
There will be two sets of poles running North on Rte 13 from Bagnall Road to St. Mary’s Rd. On the East side the poles will carry two circuits – Circuits 1 and 2. On the West side the poles will carry one circuit – Circuit 3.
The dual-circuit poles are taller then single-circuit poles because the bottom circuit is required to be a certain height off the ground, and the top circuit must be a certain height above the bottom circuits (the two have to be far enough apart to prevent arcing).
At St. Mary’s Road Circuit 3 will head west to North Rd (Anderson’s Creek golf course). The existing poles will be replaced with new poles that can handle the 3-phase wires. These poles will be approximately the same height as the existing poles.
Circuits 1 and 2 will continue through to just past the Toy Factory. The existing poles will be replaced with dual-circuits poles so only one set of poles will be going through New Glasgow, in the same places they are now. They will be about 5 feet higher though because they hold 2 circuits.
The existing 2-phase line will stay in place on New London Rd, but a rotting pole will be replaced at the Rte 13 intersection.
Circuit 1 will continue on the existing poles up to Cavendish. No new poles needed as these already support 3-phase wires.
Circuit 2 will cross the bridge towards the Preserve Company with a couple of existing poles being replaced to handle the 3-phase wires. Circuit 2 will then continue on the existing poles which already handle 3-phase wires.
I also should mention that the short poles with the communication wires on them (Bell, Eastlink, etc) will also eventually be removed and the communication lines put on the new poles. The timeline for this depends on the communication companies that own those lines.
In the section where the communication lines are already on the same poles as the electric lines they will be moved as the new poles are put in. The coordination required is one reason that the new poles haven’t been put in through New Glasgow yet – but my understanding is that the plan is to have that done before the new year.
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