SaskPower’s annual wood pole maintenance is officially underway, and the utility will inspect over 101,000 wood power poles across the province to ensure system reliability.

“SaskPower’s priority is to provide safe, reliable power to its customers, and ensuring the integrity of our wood pole infrastructure is key,” said Shawn Schmidt, Vice President of Customer Services and Distribution at SaskPower. “With more power poles than people in Saskatchewan, this annual program is very important to ensure system reliability.”

The inspection work involves looking for any damage, signs of decay and carpenter ant infestation. Wherever possible, SaskPower will repair or reinforce a damaged power pole to extend its life and keep it in service. If a repair can’t be done, the pole will be flagged for replacement. This year, the utility is investing over $6.6 million into the testing and treatment of wood power poles.

Work is scheduled to take place between May and October, and will be conducted in these areas:

• Shellbrook (516 poles)
• Rosthern (572 poles)
• Stoughton (32,898 poles)
• Rosetown (24,207 poles) 
• Spiritwood (17,362 poles)
• Saskatoon Rural East (14,623 poles)
• La Ronge (342 poles)
• Buffalo Narrows (11,110 poles)

Some of the work happening this year will include installing wildfire protection on SaskPower infrastructure. Crews will remain within the SaskPower right-of-way as much as possible but may require access on owned land in some instances. No outages are expected to occur as a result of this work.

For more information about SaskPower’s annual wood pole maintenance program, and to see a schedule of work, visit saskpower.com/woodpoles.

At a glance...

• SaskPower will inspect over 101,000 wood power poles this year
• Crews will be looking for damage, decay, and carpenter ant infestation
• SaskPower has 1.2 million wood power poles in Saskatchewan
• Damaged poles will be repaired or reinforced, whenever possible
• Learn more at saskpower.com/woodpoles