HUBBELL POWER SYSTEMS RETURNS TO SPAIN AS A BAREHAND WORK TRAINER IN ASTURIAS, AGAIN WITH KOLAB’S SUPPORT
15 October 2021
Kolab Ensayos S,L
Dielectric Testing Service Provider
In September 2021 Hubbell Power Systems, manufacturer of Chance live working tools, delivered training on Barehand live-line maintenance to MONCISA line crews.
After their successful collaboration in a training course delivered in Spain in May 2021, Chance (Hubbell Power Systems Group) and Kolab Ensayos undertook a second joint project in September. Once again the course was given by Hermon Hardy, with over 30 years’ experience as a lineman and live-line trainer in the US and other countries across the world. Both the classroom and field training took place at Moncisa’s training facility in Sariego, in the midst of Spain’s cider producing region.
The facilities comprised fully equipped classrooms and a number of structures with various deadend and suspension configurations, allowing both de-energised and energised practice. This provided the ideal conditions to ensure that all participants, in addition to absorbing all the basic concepts in the classroom, could gain first-hand experience in each of the work procedures covered during the course. Participants were encouraged to try out different ways of approaching each task, with the aim of providing a broad base of theoretical and practical skills with which to undertake the various maintenance tasks requested by their clients.
The Barehand work method is used mainly for maintenance on transmission lines, where the high line rated voltages make it impossible to use insulating gloves with the Rubber Gloving method. In Barehand Work, the lineman approaches the phase from an insulated ladder or insulated aerial device, and comes into direct contact with the conductor (this is known as “bonding on”). Wearing a conductive suit which acts as a Faraday cage affording protection from the effects of the electrical field, the worker strictly adheres to a detailed step-by-step written procedure to ensure that he will never encroach on the appropriate minimum approach distances (MAD) from any parts at different potential.
Kolab Ensayos was impressed with Moncisa’s excellent organisational capabilities, as well as the motivation and skill of its extremely hard-working linemen. All of which contributed to making the course, in our view, a total success.
