There’s a wind storm around, so today I’m thankful for reclosers, one of my favorite parts of electrical infrastructure.

Reclosers are part of the electrical distribution system, the “medium size” electrical network that bridges between the big steel tower 400,000 volt world of electrical transmission and the happy little 110v power in your home. They’re like the circuit breakers that turn your power off if something bad happens to your home wires, but have a special trick up their sleeves.

Out in the distribution world, a very high percentage of bad things that happen to electrical lines are short-lived, like bird poo, falling branches, lightning, and grilled squirrels. Reclosers watch the lines carefully, and can turn current off in tens of milliseconds if one of those things happens.

Then, a couple seconds later, they turn it back on automatically. Mostly the transient badness has passed, and the network can go back to normal operation.

No need to send out a crew in a storm, apologize to customers, or sit in the dark. The little computers in reclosers reduce end-user power outages by something like 80%, at a very reasonable cost.

You’ve probably sat at home in a wind storm (or ice storm, like we had the other day in the PNW) and had your power go out for a couple seconds before returning. That’s likely a recloser at work.