In as much as the coop’s GIS model gives general possible locations of dead trees, the method is not foolproof. This also resulted in a significant drop in the number of dead-tree-related customer calls, as the trees were being cut down before the customers had time to call in and alert the coop.Īlthough the GIS-derived results went a long way to improving the hazard tree control effort at Mid-South Synergy, the coop thought there was still room for improvement. Using this two-pronged approach of GIS and previously established cycles, the coop cut down more than 60,000 dead trees close to distribution lines over a three-year period, resulting in a significant decrease in vegetation-related outages to the coop’s pre-2012 levels. This was in addition to the coop’s ongoing cyclical trimming exercise, which was done concurrently.
These maps became the source of work packets dispatched to right-of-way (ROW) crews for hazard tree control. The coop managed to create maps showing areas with the highest risk of dead trees.
Historic outages were also part of the data set used in the analysis. The coop responded by using geographic information system (GIS) modeling (see T&D World, March 2013) using freely available GIS data on soils, vegetation and rainfall. A few years ago, following a major drought that swept across the state of Texas, dead trees resulted in thousands of power outages in Mid-South Synergy Electric Cooperative’s service area.
