Was that a blink?

Was that a blink?

Have you ever noticed your lights flick­er dur­ing a thun­der­storm? Or maybe you’ve had to reset the clocks in your house after a brief pow­er inter­rup­tion. This is known as a “blink” and, as incon­ve­nient as it might be, it demon­strates that YEC’s elec­tri­cal equip­ment is work­ing prop­er­ly, pro­tect­ing against fur­ther dam­age and pre­vent­ing longer out­ages.

Yes, that was a blink and it’s per­fect­ly nor­mal. Con­tin­ue read­ing to learn more about pow­er blinks.

York Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive works year-round to pre­vent out­ages by aggres­sive­ly trim­ming rights-of-way, con­duct­ing sys­tem improve­ments and inspec­tions, mov­ing over­head pow­er lines under­ground and per­form­ing con­stant sys­tem main­te­nance. How­ev­er, we know we can­not pre­dict or pre­vent all ser­vice inter­rup­tions. So, our elec­tri­cal sys­tem is designed to min­i­mize the effects of out­ages to mem­bers when they do occur. A pow­er blink is proof that our sys­tem is work­ing prop­er­ly.

What is a pow­er blink?

Pow­er blinks are short ser­vice inter­rup­tions that are caused by a fault on the line. A fault occurs when some­thing con­tacts an ener­gized line, dis­rupt­ing the flow of elec­tric­i­ty. This could be a squir­rel, tree limb, light­ning, a car acci­dent or some­thing sim­i­lar. For exam­ple, when a tree limb falls onto a line, and then to the ground, the pow­er blinks, but it does not stay off for long. In this instance, while the flow of elec­tric­i­ty is momen­tar­i­ly inter­rupt­ed, the smart devices on our sys­tem detect whether or not it is safe to resume nor­mal pow­er dis­tri­b­u­tion.

What caus­es an out­age after a blink?

It is com­mon for the device to attempt to clear the line of a fault more than once. If the line is not cleared or the smart device detects oth­er prob­lems, the line will de-ener­gize to pro­tect against fur­ther equip­ment dam­ages and ensure safe­ty. Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly dur­ing an out­age sit­u­a­tion, addi­tion­al equip­ment com­mu­ni­cates with YEC’s out­age man­age­ment sys­tem to help iso­late the prob­lem, pin­point the out­age and pre­dict the out­age cause so that crews can respond as quick­ly as pos­si­ble.

Regard­less of the cause, YEC crews will be dis­patched to inspect any dam­age and make repairs after a pow­er out­age.

Have you expe­ri­enced repeat­ed dis­rup­tions to your elec­tric ser­vice? Please let us know by email­ing our mem­ber ser­vices team or use our web­site’s chat fea­ture at the bot­tom right of each web page.