Abstract
The present work deals with reducing greenhouse gas emissions through improving the life span of wooden power electric poles of Eucalyptus saligna. Indeed, in Sub-Saharan African countries, Cameroon in particular, most of the power line networks are made of wooden supports and according to the Cameroon energy distribution company, wooden poles represent 32% of the causes of death linked to the state of the network. The company’s 2019 annual report indicates that 40,000 wooden poles were in critical condition and should be replaced. A significant number of mechanical failures affecting these supports have been observed. For example, on the HVA/LV power line “D17 Nko- abang” in Yaoundé in Cameroon, less than three years old, 10 (ten) cases of poles falling and/or breaking, due to their mechanical loading, were observed over a period of fewer than nine months, causing an average service stoppage for more than 11 hours and affecting an average of 3280 customers. These incidents lead to questions about how the supports are dimensioned and what load capacities they are designed to support. The aim of this work is, therefore, to suggest a method of dimensioning wooden poles hence reducing green- house gas emissions due to the deforestation by reducing the number of woo- den poles at risk to be replaced on Cameroon’s electricity distribution network. And more specifically, to reduce the number of mechanical failures affecting the wooden supports observed by analyzing the current wooden supports with their loads and to make proposals for improving the actual dimensioning me- thods. From the study carried out, it appears that 449 out of 845 supports, i.e., 53% needed to be replaced or monitored because they support the nominal forces ranging from 85% to 150% of their admissible limit and proposals have been made to improve their dimensioning.
Highlights
The public and industrial electricity power supply requires efficient production equipment and reliable transmission and distribution networks
In Sub-Saharan African countries, Cameroon in particular, most of the power line networks are made of wooden supports and according to the Cameroon energy distribution company, wooden poles represent 32% of the causes of death linked to the state of the network
The methodology used for dimensioning wooden poles is the synthesis of four calculation approaches below: 1) The one established by the French “the French Electricity Transmission Network (RTE)” [11]; 2) The one promulgated by the Belgium “the General Regulation on Electrical Installations (RGIE) of Belgium” [12]; 3) The one adopted for the calculation of the American electricity network [13]; J
Summary
The public and industrial electricity power supply requires efficient production equipment and reliable transmission and distribution networks. In Cameroon, in particular, a great number of mechanical failures affecting the electric line supports are still observed, causing financial losses, risks to the people’s safety and goods, electrical power distribution/supply services interruptions, and increased deforestation. It should be noted that these incidents caused an average downtime of more than 11 hours 41 minutes to more than 3280 customers on average [2] This early replacement of these wooden poles increases deforestation, and increases greenhouse gas emissions. This state of affairs questions the validity of the dimensioning initially done for those wooden poles, and their ability to support loads. How to dimension the wooden power line supports to be more reliable, more sustainable and how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions due to the deforestation? The second section presents the results obtained after applying these methods on the D17 Nkoabang power line supports, and the third section determines the loading state of the differrent columns and proposes dimensioning complements in order to make the line supports more reliable and more sustainable
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