Energy provider Electricity North West (ENW) has said its engineers were “left speechless” after discovering that a telecoms operator in the Lancashire (England) town of Burnley had erected a steel mast “just one metre away” from 132,000-volt overhead electricity lines. “One wrong move could have resulted in a death,” said ENW.
The “potentially fatal” situation in Burnley is said to have been discovered on Wednesday by ENW’s “tree cutting teams“, who were carrying out maintenance in the area. The team reported the situation immediately, and engineers attended the Kiddrow Lane site and quickly made the decision to switch out and earth the circuit for safety reasons. No customers were without power as a result.
You’d think that even the most basic understanding of science and electricity, the sort children tend to learn at the youngest of ages and that we all carry through our lives, would have avoided such a Darwin Awards level error of safety competence. But clearly, in this case, something has gone shockingly wrong, and we can all thank our lucky sparks stars that no lives were lost. This is about as dangerous as you can get.
As ENW states, the 132,000-volt network is the highest voltage they operate at. By comparison, even the standard 230 volts in a domestic property is more than enough to kill. Suffice to say, engineering standards require any assets to be several meters away from the 132kV network due to the possibility of the electricity jumping. At such high voltages, electricity can jump up to 3 meters through the air to a conducting material (e.g. like a tall steel mast!), making it live.
Paul Killilea, Electricity North West’s Asset and Investment Director, said:
“The incident seen in Burnley is incredibly serious and one that without a doubt could have been avoided.
I cannot stress enough that one wrong move could have resulted in a death. People need to be aware of their surroundings, particularly if they’re erecting steel poles, scaffolding or even ladders anywhere near our network.
Taking a moment can make all the difference, if you are unsure, pick up the phone and call us. We are more than happy to help and ensure work is carried out safely when in close proximity to the network.”
ENW added that their engineers remained on site until the installer attended and within several hours, the pole was taken down. Surprisingly, the release doesn’t state who the “installer” was, although the mast looks almost identical (example) to the smaller, more discreet, ones that IX Wireless (6Gi / Opus Broadband) are sometimes known to have been erecting around the town (they also deploy a much larger mast in other locations).
However, it is possible that IXW may not be the only telecoms operator using these in the area, so we’ve shot off a comment request to their press contact in the hope of gaining some official clarification. Anybody who sees anything dangerous in or around the power network should call their local network operator on 105.