A TEAM of University of Queensland Gatton undergraduate students has helped hose down the risk of bushfire-sparked power cuts along the State’s eastern seaboard.
Two third-year Bachelor of Environmental Management students have developed formulas calculating vegetation growth rates and bush fire risks in transmission line easements, giving transmission maintenance crew advanced warning of potential hot spots.
Analysing factors such as fuel loads, canopy heights, composition and prevailing aspects, student Louise Orr created a mathematical formula to determine an easement’s fire risk factor – low, medium, high, very high or extreme. Field staff can access this formula via electronic notebooks.
While fellow student Bradley Green created a vegetation management database that identified which plants were slow or fast growing, helping staff develop treatment cycles to prune or trim trees, minimising vegetation-generated power outages.
Ms Orr said her model was a predictive tool that allowed network maintenance people to calculate blackout risks based on an evaluation of an easement’s vegetation, topography and conductor factors.
“Ideally, this will result in maximised vegetation maintenance cycle times, improvement to the maintenance system and the reliability of the transmission line system as a whole, with the additional advantage of improving environmental outcomes,” she said in her report.
Prepared for Blue Gum Environmental Consultancy Services on behalf of Powerlink Queensland, the student databases build on the knowledge Powerlink already obtained, at the same time increasing staff accessibility to data required for standardised easement maintenance programs. The databases will help further reduce the risk of power failures caused by bush fires passing under transmission lines.
In Ms Orr’s report, titled Sample Bush Fire Risk Assessment Model, she said current policy procedures might not adequately address fire risks as network maintenance people relied heavily on personal experience and knowledge rather than a uniform management system.
Both students completed their reports between August and December last year as part of industrial placement research projects. Ms Orr examined bush fire risks at Karawatha, Beerburrum and Crohamhurst State Forests, Crows Nest, Gladstone and Mt Ossa, while Mr Green collated height and trunk measurements from plants growing on transmission line easements in nine South-East Queensland sites.
Mr Green’s study, also prepared for Powerlink, a government-owned corporation responsible for a $2.5 billion network stretching 1700km from north of Cairns to the New South Wales border, included easements at Mt Mee State Forest, Texas, Browns Plains, Crows Nest and Woodford.
Mr Green said that his report, Vegetation Growth Rates Parameters for Powerlink Easement Vegetation Database, made recommendations for the further improvement of vegetation management practices to reduce the risks of bush fire impacts on easements.
UQ Gatton lecturer Greg Siepen said the students’ work was one example of Powerlink addressing community environmental concerns with the results from both studies helping to sustain plant and wildlife corridors as well as minimise erosion.
Mr Siepen said the UQ students were helping Powerlink people with ideas about what species to plant as part of the easement revegetation process.
“It’s important to link natural habitats affected by easements so plants and animals can still interbreed, unfortunately you might not always be able to have the same species but you could get something similar where animals or pollen could move through.”
Media: For further information or copies of the reports please contact Greg Siepen on (07) 5460 1021 or Anthony Smith on 0409 265 587.
