Birds, substations, and transmission

Birds have the dubious honor of causing more power system outages than any other animal. In addition to directly causing outages by wingtip contacts or nesting activities, they are indirectly responsible for many other animal-caused outages. Not only have birds been a problem since the first power systems were built, but many utilities have had little or no success in devising mitigating measures. Partly, this is due to a tendency to focus on the engineering side of the problem to the exclusion of the "bird" side of the problem. in other words, utilities tend to repair or replace damaged equipment with little or no idea of why the birds were there in the first place or what the probability of a re-occurrence might be. Without an adequate understanding of basic bird behavior, utilities may end up installing deterrents or protective devices that are neither the most effective nor the most appropriate. This paper briefly analyses the type of bird behaviour that causes problems in substations and transmission. The main problems are nesting birds, roosting birds, and large birds. Bird deterrents and equipment protection are also discussed in this paper.