Your Home - How We Restore Power

During extended outages, many members believe that "they are always the last ones turned back on" during a power outage. This cannot be farther from the truth. There is a systematic and highly efficient method that must be used when restoring electric service to members without power.

Power must be restored in the following order to insure that all member's power is restored. An individual service in the middle or at the end of a line cannot receive electricity until all of the repairs between them and the power supply have been made.

Below is a simple "step-by-step" process that has to be used when restoring power during a power outage:

1. SUPPLIER'S TRANSMISSION LINES have to be restored first. Otherwise, there is no power for the rest of the system. We must confirm that our power supplier’s transmission lines are operational and supplying electricity to our substations first.
2. THE COOPERATIVE'S TRANSMISSION LINES come next.
   Once we can confirm that our supplier's transmission lines are functioning properly and delivering power to our substations, we must then confirm that our transmission lines are intact and delivering power properly.
3. SUBSTATIONS come next. Before we can make any progress and move forward with repairs, we must make any necessary repairs to our substations to get them in working order so there is power available to deliver on the power lines that feed your homes.
4. Then FEEDERS AND MAIN LINES. These distribution lines leave the substation and supply power to the majority of members. Repairs have to be done there before electricity can be delivered to your home or business. Without them operating properly, you will be without electricity.
5. TAP LINES or BRANCH LINES are next. These tap or branch lines come off of the main lines or feeders and supply one or more homes.
6. Finally, INDIVIDUAL SERVICES. Generally these lines serve only one home. Most often they are the lines that go directly to a house from the pole.

Hopefully, the order in which electric service, as described above makes some sense. Please understand that at no time, does North Western Electric or any other utility randomly decide which services to restore and to leave off. Restoration of electric service is typically an efficient process that takes some time to complete.