Balancing competing requirements when specifying bird protective covers

Electrical utility engineers are often required to write standards for equipment to be used on transmission and distribution networks. The importance of balancing the “ideal” technical requirements with the practicality of meeting those requirements and the cost is well known. For example, including a certain type test may lead to a more reliable product, but that test may be difficult or expensive to perform and so the costs of requiring such a test may outweigh the benefits. An important source of information to assist with compiling a well-balanced standard is firsthand field experience with the product in question; this has been shown to alleviate the need for certain tests and to identify the need for others that would not ordinarily have been thought of.