T&D
West Kootenay Power Ltd, a utility in British Colombia, experienced four damaging power surges during June and July, three of which were caused by lightning strikes. The surges caused the company to lose major portions of its transmission capacity. In one of these instances, eight major transmission lines were put out of operation simultaneously.
While the company considers the events to be extraordinary, and therefore unlikely to recur, it has taken measures to prevent similar events having the same effect. One step has been to keep closed a tie-line to the British Colombia (BC) Hydro system, which is normally open. This will allow the utility to dump excess power onto the BC Hydro grid in future. The company has said that it also plans to reduce its own output when storms or lightning are a threat in the future in order to reduce the risk of power imbalance within the system.