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Oct/Nov 2011 www.esb.ie/em
ESB Networks Ltd.
Online Sustainability Training
page 22
Two Years LTI-Free and South Division are taking it 'One Day at a Time'
SOUTH DIVISION reached a milestone on August 18th last when it became the first ever Division in D&CS to achieve two consecutive years without recording a single Lost Time Incident (LTI). This statistic is all the more impressive when we consider that LTIs have seen an increase during 2011. But LTIs are not just statistics, they are all about people; people who leave their families in the morning and expect to come back to them in the evening safe and well. In South Division the focus is firmly placed on the person and having the person take ownership of their own safety.
Every effort has been made to challenge staff and management, at all levels, in working safely and they have responded magnificently. Safe working begins and ends at the workplace, whether it is in one of the large urban offices or a two-man crew changing a transformer in a remote rural location. All across this sprawling Division, workers have responded to this challenge by becoming involved as Safety Champions, Team Safety Contacts, Safety Reps and Safety Committee members. On a parochial level, Local Safety Plans are a key component in resolving issues as they arise and near-miss reporting has been consistently high.
Due to the geographical spread of staff, the South Division Safety Committee is made up of four local sub-groups who each meet four times annually. Local issues are discussed and items are submitted to the main committee for inclusion in the quarterly agenda when two nominees from each sub-group attend the main meeting at various locations. An ‘expert invitee’ is regularly invited to address the meeting. Issues are addressed there and then or subsequently followed up. Any serious unresolved issues are included on the agenda of the National Safety Committee by the permanent South Division rep who is an attendee.
Reaching two years LTI-Free status comes from the behaviour of people on the ground and their attitude towards safety in the workplace. Worker behaviour will always be the variable on which statistics are built. Having a look at LTIs over the years it became obvious that most of the accidents where staff have suffered injuries were avoidable. By refusing to take a short cut, or refusing to deviate from proven procedures, we can help to prevent unnecessary suffering, not just for ourselves and our colleagues, but for our extended families as well. Although the two year LTI-Free statistic might at first seem impressive it is also a challenge to get better at what we are doing - any of the five minor injuries in the Division during 2011 could have been an LTI.
The current target is to get South Division across the 1,000 days LTI-free barrier on May 12th 2012. We will keep going and – in the immortal words – take it one day at a time.
IRELAND – Not just one island but many!
THE ISLAND OF IRELAND has more than 30 smaller islands off its coast. Some are uninhabited and rugged havens of wildlife, but many are home to island communities and a lot of these are Gaeltacht islands. The islands are located, for the most part, along the southwest, west and northwest coastline.
ESB Networks provides electricity supply to these communities in a number of ways, namely: submarine cables, underground cables below sea bed, overhead lines or stand-alone generators where there is no connection to the mainland network.
“The weather turned foul and our two Network Technicians were stranded
ESB Networks had a lot of island activity on Wednesday September 7th when there were supply issues on islands at opposite ends of Ireland: Tory and Bere.
Tory Island
Tory Island, which is 14.5km off the northwest coast of Donegal has a population of about 130 people and, as it is too far from the mainland for a submarine cable, it is supplied by an ESB-owned generator on the island. The island can be reached by boat or helicopter, but is often unreachable due to weather conditions preventing either a boat or helicopter from operating! The network is operated and maintained by local supervisors Bernard McGonagle and Ciaran Kelly and their staff based on the mainland at Killybegs and Falcarragh.
The generator failed on Wednesday September 7th and supply was lost to the entire island. Due to weather conditions that night it was not possible to get ESB Networks staff to the island to carry out repairs. Early the following morning, it was possible to transfer two Network Technicians by helicopter to the island. Repairs were carried out and supply was restored. However, the weather once again turned foul and our two Network Technicians were stranded on the island until it was possible to get them back to the mainland the following day.
Maintenance of the generator and the overhead networks on Tory Island is carried out in the summer months when the boat is operating and the weather is usually reliable. This minimises the need for ESB attendance on the island during the harsh winter months.
Feeding the network from the mainland is definitely the better option where distance allows it, this is the norm nowadays. Submarine cables present their own challenges in terms of fault repair. When they fault, it is generally as a result of contact with an anchor or propeller.
Bere Island
Bere Island, with a population of just over 200 people, is 2km off the coast of west Cork and is supplied by a submarine cable from the mainland. The island is easily reached by boat most of the year. John O’Neill and his team operate and maintain the network here.
Also on Wednesday September 7th, a fault developed on the cable feeding Bere Island. The fault was isolated and fault hunting from the mainland identified the general location of the fault. A diver was used to pinpoint the faulted section and bring it to the surface so that repairs could be carried out on a boat at the surface. Supply was restored to the island within 12 hours of the fault occurring, which is excellent for this type of situation. Supplying these remote island communities, demonstrates the ongoing commitment of ESB Networks to providing high levels of customer service to all our customers, not matter what the weather.
