Electric current. We are all more or less affected by it, and it is easy to take for granted that it will always be available when we need it.
Most of the time it does, but behind the well-functioning electricity deliveries there are people on constant alert, ready to go out on risky missions for our sake.
Sture Burman is one of them, and his everyday life at work is now portrayed in the TV series Högspänning (High Voltage), which is broadcast on Viaplay/TV3.
“A normal day at work?” I don’t have any,” he says when I ask him to describe a normal day at work.
Still, it is precisely such days that the film crew has followed. Ordinary days at Sture Burman’s job.
One of the days was to search for a cable fault on the mountain Nijbetjåhkkå, 70 km north of Arjeplog.
-“When you have a film crew with you, it somehow becomes both a real and a created situation. You plan as best you can plan in advance, but then reality comes along and we can’t influence it. The weather wasn’t as good as you would like when you’re going out on a mission like this, but it wasn’t as bad as it can be when we go out either,” says Sture Burman.
Sture Burman’s regular workplace is Arjeplog municipality. If he is prepared, he has preparedness throughout the municipality. Around the clock. The distances are large and the electricity grid extensive. There are at least 750 kilometres of high-voltage power lines here, and the electricity grid is constantly expanding.
“It can take time to find a cable fault. First of all, it can take time to get to the area where the problem is. If I’m in Arjeplog, I first have seven kilometers by car, and then maybe 8-10 kilometers by snowmobile before I arrive at a cable fault on, for example, Nijbetjåhkkå. It takes a few hours,” he says.
Preparing for a troubleshooting mission on standby is almost impossible.
“A plough truck driver on standby can see that it’s snowing, and go to bed early in the evening to get up early and go out. I never know if and when I’m going out. Or when I get home. The only thing I know is that I have to be fully focused all the time, even if I’ve been out at work all night and it’s four o’clock in the morning. Every time I stand in front of a transformer cabinet, I have to remember that death is in there. I must not make the slightest mistake when I open the doors.
These are things that Sture Burman hopes to convey in the TV series.
“I wish more people understood that it is not entirely obvious that the light should always be on when you press the button. It can take time before we find and fix a fault, and it has happened that we have had to turn around to wait for better weather.
Of course, the TV series also conveys a picture of Arjeplog and Arjeplogare. How many of the viewers will understand everything that is said remains to be seen, unless parts of the programs are subtitled.
“I think that at least the film crew had a hard time keeping up when my nephew Erik and I talked to each other,” says Sture Burman and laughs.
The TV series, which was produced in a collaboration between Vattenfall and Skellefteå Kraft, extends over two seasons. The series is called Högspänning and will be broadcast via TV3/Viaplay with a premiere on March 27. On April 10, an episode will be broadcast in which Sture Burman participates.
Text/Photo: Marianne Hoffman
Source: ArjeplogNytt