Preventing Outages

Wiregrass Electric Cooperative’s (WEC) lineworkers are ready to respond when outages occur, but our crews also work hard to prevent outages and ensure we provide reliable electricity to our members.

Here's How:

• Maintenance: Crews keep rights of way clear from tree limbs, rotted wood, and underbrush. Cutting and spraying are performed on a 4-year rotation, with a different section of the system addressed each year. We have a crew that works between cuttings to address fast-growing brush.
• Plan: WEC follows a 4-year work plan to anticipate and prepare for future growth in our service area and the demand that will place on the overall system. Crews build new infrastructure and make improvements to current lines. This is all done so that new neighborhoods and businesses won’t overload our power lines.
• Technology: We use the latest technology to remotely control field equipment, isolate outages, and perform switching all without rolling a truck. The same technology even lets us know where a problem is in the system. All of this helps us prevent outages and restore power faster when outages do occur.