Maintenance Experience Contributes to Transmission Line Design at Spain’s RED Eléctrica

As Martin Portillo sees it, there is really no reason for utility engineers to learn the same lessons twice. In his case, the lesson which apparently needed to be learned only once concerns the selection of insulators for two new 400 kV circuits which are currently being added to the network in southern Spain. Portillo works at the large national utility, RED Eléctrica, and he is convinced that, as in this particular instance, field experience should play a pivotal role in assisting line designers to avoid repeating insulation problems encountered in the past.

Portillo. Knowledge transfer from maintenance department to design team evident in newer 400 kV lines.

Portillo’s emphasis on the contributions to line design which can be offered by maintenance experience is certainly understandable. For many years he was Manager of the utility’s Maintenance Department. Today, however, as Project Director, he is responsible for new line construction and is now closely involved in the program to reinforce the 400 kV network in this area of the country.

Meeting INMR in the historic Andalucian town of Arcos de la Frontera, Portillo and colleague José Maria Muñoz discuss the events and experience which ultimately resulted in composite insulators being installed in place of the glass strings normally utilized on RED Eléctrica lines. There is perhaps an interesting irony in the fact that five centuries ago, the area around Arcos was a crucial battleground in Spanish efforts to drive the Moors out from their long presence in this part of the country. Today, by contrast, the transmission line construction projects underway in this area are responding mainly to a perceived need to reinforce links between Spain and Morocco.