Prior to the Silsden – Barnoldswick project, Groundline UK worked with Northern Powergrid to provide on-demand, targeted testing services of individual poles, or tested small (50 – 100 pole) routes to inform Northern Powergrid’s targeted maintenance schedules.
The Silsden – Barnoldswick route, with two parallel routes of 240 33kv poles, provided an opportunity for Groundline UK with to showcase the abilities of the THOR Poletest system on its largest routes to date.
To demonstrate Thor’s ease of use, Groundline recruited and trained two new operatives, with no prior pole testing experience, to carry out the testing. They also developed a special visual assessment guide for the new operators to ensure consistency with Northern Powergrid’s existing pole assessment system. The new operatives completed the testing within 16 field days.
To expedite the processing of the site collected data, Groundline developed a spreadsheet to enable the direct import of the THOR data to be converted into a client-friendly report format.
