Toronto Hydro upgrades distribution lines to tree cable as part of carbon neutral strategy, reducing tree-wire conflicts; Toronto, Canada

Protecting A City's Greenery:
This transformation began in 2007, when Toronto Hydro Corp. officially embarked on a sustainability program that included becoming carbon neutral, says Blair Peberdy, the corporation's vice-president, marketing, communications and public affairs.
That year, Toronto Hydro established its carbon footprint was 156,800 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents and set out to identify ways to reduce it.
'Part of this [footprint] is due to line losses -- the energy that is lost between the generating stations across Ontario and the transmission lines that feed into Toronto,' Mr. Peberdy says. 'The line loss in Toronto Hydro worked out to about 3% of all the power that we buy from the grid.'
That loss was due partly to trees, so Toronto Hydro has been upgrading its distribution system as well as installing what is known as 'tree cable,' which has a thick plastic coating to protect the conductor from accidental tree contact.