A failed insulator in Bradford Township left much of the Bradford area without power for about a half-hour Thursday afternoon.
Penelec spokesman Todd Meyers said power was out from 12:26 to 1:08 p.m.
“We had an insulator on one of our poles near the downtown,” he explained. “That insulator failed.”
An insulator is a little porcelain piece that holds the wire off the wooden pole. “If the wire comes into contact with the pole, it can burn the pole,” he said.
The insulator are on poles for years, and are inspected by the utility company. However, Meyer said, “they develop little cracks, and moisture and water get in there and they can crack and break.”
He continued, “It happened in a spot where that wire feeds the substation. When that supply of energy doesn’t get into the substation, that area can get knocked out.”
Subsequent periods of power outages and “brown outs” happened during the afternoon as the repairs were underway, he explained.
Thursday’s outage was unrelated to the one a week ago that left the area in the dark for hours.
“It was another substation in the downtown area, on Mill Street,” Meyer said. The wires are underground, then come out of the ground and run up a pole. “There’s a spot where the underground cable failed.”
Until that was discovered and fixed, the power was out, he explained.
“With the underground cable, sometimes the corrosive nature of the soil begins to eat away” at the wire. “With that, you can’t see it until it fails.”
And Penelec has “tens of thousands of miles” of wires in the state, he added.
These problems are essentially normal wear and tear on the power lines.
When asked, Meyer said this area is not prone to more power failures than others within the company’s coverage area.
He explained utility companies have to report “worse performing circuits” to the state Public Utility Commission. And this area isn’t one of them.
“You have a couple of outages, one on the heels of another, and that gives a perception of it,” Meyer said. “Job one at Penelec is keep the lights on. In this day and age, no one lives well without electricity.”
