Utility Automation & Engineering T&D: “The Exacter 20,000-Mile Survey shows that failing electrical distribution equipment may be much worse than suggested by the Department of Energy’s 2003 Study by a factor of nearly 2-to-1,” said the president of Exacter Inc., whose company measured failure signatures across more than 20,000 miles of distribution lines in 2007. “This discrepancy may result from latent damage.” In the Exacter survey, 26,450 failing signatures were located across 22,706 miles of distribution overhead. The DOE’s 3,000,000-mile study predicts 13,624 equipment failures over the same area. The results of the study are based on actual measurements as opposed to after-the-fact outage reports. Exacter said it is the single, largest measurement of U.S. electrical distribution systems ever conducted. “For 12 months, we worked with 19 utilities in 15 states measuring failure emissions,” said Exacter’s president. “These utilities validated our findings.”