Austin Energy trying out lighter, stronger overhead power lines

AUSTIN (KXAN) — This week, Austin Energy is rolling out a new conductor at its McNeil Substation in north Austin — which the utility says can carry 50% more power. That extra strength could help with overall grid resiliency.

The conductor, or overhead power line, has carbon fiber inside of it instead of steel, Austin Energy explained. It's the first time the utility has used this kind of conductor, something transmission engineer Jeff Gauthier described as "a pretty big deal."

"So far we've had one day of stringing. Everything went well...behaved exactly like it was supposed to. So it looks really promising," Gauthier said.

The carbon core inside of the new line is lighter, stronger and less easily damaged by severe weather, Gauthier said.

"We've got another project in the pipeline where we're planning to use this and, if everything goes according to plan and works well, I expect you'll see more of it. We'll see more of it in the future," he said.

Overall efforts to keep Austin safe during storms

On the same day, Austin's Homeland Security and Emergency Management Director Ken Snipes walked Austin City Council members through the overall efforts the City of Austin has taken since the historic ice storm we had earlier this year where the loss of power was a major complaint from Austinites.

Many of the improvements Snipes presented were items touched on in an after-action report released in September. That included: better communication with the public in more than a dozen languages, making sure staff are all on the same page and putting emergency generators at all critical facilities like fire stations.

"You've given me a lot of confidence that our city has improved in how we prepare for emergencies and that we're thinking about communications and operations and resiliency," Council Member Vanessa Fuentes told Snipes during Tuesday's meeting.