Present State-of-the-Art of Transmission Line Icing

Icing of overhead power lines is a serious problem for electric utilities. The loads resulting from iced conductors take many forms. Existing Codes and Guides offer little help in establishing adequate design criteria. Each transmission line designer must, therefore, rely heavily on intuitive judgment to set performance levels for transmission lines to be built within his particular service area. A special study was undertaken by author Pohlman in behalf of the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) to accomplish the following objectives: ??? Improve the general understanding of the total problem; ??? Sample utility perceptions and experience with the problem; ??? Accumulate and review professional opinion on the subject; ??? Inventory past and on-going research activities; ??? Consolidate the above into a definition of the present state-of-the-art to define the need for future research.