By Dean B. Wisecarver
At home here in Ohio, I am an owner-member-consumer of an electric cooperative. Our cooperative has two substations within one mile of our house and I pass them frequently. Over the years, I’ve seen a variety of things stored inside the security fencing at these substations, most notably trailers with large spools of wire, utility-body trucks, poles or poles on pole trailers, and sometimes utility body trailers. Knowing something of the electric utility business, I suspect some, but perhaps not all, of the items I saw in the substations belonged to electrical contractors from out of town that were doing work for the cooperative. The substations, I am sure, are an attractive, convenient, and reasonably secure place for temporarily storing the contractors’ equipment.
About 18 months ago I noticed a change. The substations suddenly were clear of any stored vehicles or materials. Out of professional curiosity, I called the Director of Safety at my cooperative to find out if what I saw represented a change in policy or was just a momentary lack of need for storage space.
The Director of Safety told me that, indeed, what I was seeing was a change in policy. The cooperative no longer permits storage of any kind in its substations, and for very good reason. It seems that several times during 2004, thieves breeched the security fencing at three of the cooperative’s substations and attempted to break into the utility trucks parked there, probably looking for tools or other valuable materials. In one case they tried to pull conductor off a spool and cut it to steal it. 
The thieves didn’t get much in any of these cases but they caused considerable, costly damage and they were perilously close to the energized components in the substation. The cooperative saw immediately how big of disaster might have resulted. Not only might these crazy fools have damaged some very expensive transformers and caused sizeable outages, but they might have been killed, leading to lots of time investigating, doing paperwork, and generally mopping up. These incidents caused the cooperative’s management to recognized that the value of the additional temporary storage space was more than off-set by the risks of attracting perpetrators to breach the security fencing and enter a very dangerous area.
As a result, my cooperative now bans any form of parking or storage of materials from all its substations.
Over the years of consulting with many of you who are insured in our national program, we have recommended that your cooperatives or utilities adopt a similar policy. The risks of attracting foolish, emboldened thieves to breech the perimeter fencing simply because there may be tools or other valuables in the trucks or trailers parked inside is just too tempting and poses risks for your company that go far beyond the value of the space. I understand there are some managers out there that believe these perpetrators are “in the wrong” and if they get hurt it’s their own fault. But as is true with most accidents, even the innocent party suffers considerable economic loss, making some investment in prevention a solid business decision. You put the barrier fencing up. You post the required signs warning people of the lethally high voltages. Why negate these efforts by putting tools, materials and vehicles inside that might invite crazy people to ignore the fence and warnings and try to get in?
I understand the typical situation. When crews, especially contractor crews that often come from distant towns, are working in really remote areas, using the substations as a temporary storage just makes better economic sense than running all that equipment out that far every day. I truly understand. But perpetrators also might see these remote areas as good places to pull off their crimes without getting caught. From a business standpoint, it’s a tough call either way and I’m not smart enough to have an answer for every situation.
If your utility uses substations as convenient temporary storage areas and it has never experienced the sort of incidents my cooperative has experienced, you might not have thought about the risks. My objective here is to provoke some serious thought about the advantages and disadvantages (the risks) of using substations as temporary storage and inspire management teams to balance the economics of doing so against the risks.