Finnish networks have been severely hit by major storms during year-end holidays. First hit the storm on second Christmas day and a few days later wet snow caused trees and branches to fall on overhead lines.
Altogether 600 technicians have been working long hours to restore electricity and telecommunications supply in Finland. A major storm hit large parts of western and southern Finland causing trees to fall on overhead lines. Soon after came the fall of wet and heavy snow that added to the damages to the lines. Tens of thousands of households have suffered from lack of critical services of electricity and telecommunications while operators and their service partners have been doing the utmost to remove the damages.
“A major factor to the scale of damages has been that the soil is wet and soft due to heavy rains and very mild weather. The result is that when trees fall they take the roots with them and this makes the recovery work difficult and slow”, says Juha Luusua, President of Eltel Power Distribution. “Also the storm continued for a few days and climbing up the poles has not been possible due to safety risks for our employees. In worst cases there have been 70 trees fallen on a power line just within 100 meters of line.”
Besides electricity and telecommunications also the railways have suffered damages. These are all focus areas of Eltel’s Infranet service business. Mobile base stations typically have batteries as their back up power, which last at maximum for a few hours. Unless there are other sources of electricity available, like for example fuel powered generators on site, the operation of such stations is not possible. Also the access to sites has been difficult due to fallen trees on roads.
The sudden loss of critical services in society has urged policy makers and Finnish government to consider how this kind of situation could be avoided in the future. One of the remedies is building more power distribution lines underground. This however means higher investments for power utilities who would like to see increased cost to be compensated in the price of electricity.
More information:
Mr. Juha Luusua, President, Eltel Power Distribution
Tel + 358 40 311 3005