With warming oceans, hurricanes have an higher probability of developing into a Category 3 storm or stronger and rapid intensification is increasing.  These mounting challenges spell disaster for wood pole based electrical grids.  With over 30,000 wood poles lost to Hurricane Ida in Louisiana alone, a grid hardening solution is required that better handles these strengthening storms.  With a reliability index of 5.1 compared to wood poles’ 1.6 (over 3x higher), sustainably resilient composite poles have a proven track record of near perfect hurricane performance.  This session will review proven hurricane severity and intensification trends, demonstrate composite poles’ reliability superiority based on full scale vertical bend testing, review the proven track record of composite poles and outline three different hurricane threat mitigation strategies.

Session Takeaways:

• Detailing the susceptibility of a wood-based grid to increasingly powerful hurricanes
• Studying the reliability index of wood poles versus composite poles
• Double hurricane exposure case study proving composite pole resiliency on a 500 pole Bahamas 69kV transmission line
• Departing from like for like hurricane pole replacement and hardening the grid
• Understanding three different approaches to hurricane threat mitigation strategies