Tips & News - April 2011

tions of conductor size and span length are well within the capability of standard items in Hubbell’s catalog,” explains St. John. “We have been buying assemblies that have 25,000 pound rated insulators and 30,000 pound [rated] hardware. Though, for our next 345-kV project, which will start in 2011, we will be installing 1590 kcmil ACSR Lapwing (also 45/7). So, we are going to 50,000 pound rated suspension insulators in the dead-end assemblies and 50,000 pound rated hard- ware. It is a different kit, but still ‘standard.’” Strong Alliances Three years ago, Westar Energy and Hubbell Power Systems entered into a purchasing alliance. “I think, with only a few exceptions, we have been buying insulators and hardware items exclusively from Hubbell since the beginning of our alliance agreement. Although Westar Energy chose to use the TowerPak® service, our contractors are all on- board. It makes their job easier, too. Having things modularized and pre-packaged speeds up the work and saves everyone a little bit of money.”

Purchasing Benefits From the purchasing side, a packaging service like Tower- Pak® can make life at a utility much easier and more effi- cient. Bob St. John, Consulting Design Engineer for Westar Energy explains. “In general, the more work that we can get vendors to do--on a factory floor—the better, because it cuts down on the amount of field work. A factory is a controlled environment, while field labor has to be performed in en- vironments that aren’t always within our control, due to weather and so on.” “And another thing: Labor costs quite a bit of money out on a transmission line right of way. [Aggregating parts] ultimately costs us money directly or indirectly, but I sus- pect that Hubbell can do that packaging less expensively than we can,” says St. John. And, TowerPak ® makes or- dering much simpler, because a complete assembly is one item. (Insulators are normally shipped separately.) A typical single phase suspension assembly may include: one anchor shackle, one socket Y-clevis, one triangular yoke plate, two suspension clamp assemblies and one suspension insulator assembly. A typical single phase deadend assembly may in- clude: two anchor shackles, one chain link, one triangular yoke plate, one rectangular yoke plate, two socket clev- ises, two deadend clamp assemblies and two suspension insulator assemblies. “In our material system, we’ve assigned a Westar Energy material code to each one of the pre-packaged assemblies. When we are putting the job together, we just order x number of dead-end assemblies and y number of suspen- sion assemblies,” says St. John. Further, by using the Hubbell TowerPak ® service, the utility does not have to purchase and store hundreds of individu- al parts (like 200 yoke plates). This frees up storage space. “When we issue the purchase order for a job, we may set it up so Hubbell Power Systems delivers the order in two or three or four different batches. We can get the deliv- eries when we want and need them (spread out over a period of several months, if that is what is called for). So, we don’t have to warehouse the whole job from day one,” says St. John. Everything You Need Another advantage of TowerPak ® is that Hubbell Power Systems, with its vast catalog of parts, provides the service Westar Energy needs. Westar Energy is building and re- building lines with a number of conductor sizes, but Hub- bell Power Systems can provide all the assemblies Westar needs and will need in the future. “We are installing 1192 kcm ACSR Bunting (45/7), but we have also installed some 954 Rail (45/7) and 795 ACSR Drake (26/7). We are pretty much buying standard, stock assemblies. The strength requirements for these combina-

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