As I recall there was a suggestion a few years ago that 11kV and 33kV lines could be insulated - it was dropped due to cost concerns. I suspect that the best that could be done would be to look at those that crossed roads and farm yards with a view to an uplift or insulation - there are just too many miles of the stuff to do anything quickly- the mean time to replacement is probably more than half a century once installed so any  rolling programme will outlive whoever starts it...

I also expect that a lot of in-service lines do not even meet the original height spec - land levels alter as things are ploughed, and ground is graded,  spans droop over time or pole shift a bit, and a multitude of other factors.

It is tragic and impressive when it goes wrong, but it is still very rare. The fastest short term is to publicise what it should look like and get farmers etc to self report if the lines over their land look a bit loopy

As I recall there was a suggestion a few years ago that 11kV and 33kV lines could be insulated - it was dropped due to cost concerns. I suspect that the best that could be done would be to look at those that crossed roads and farm yards with a view to an uplift or insulation - there are just too many miles of the stuff to do anything quickly- the mean time to replacement is probably more than half a century once installed so any  rolling programme will outlive whoever starts it...

I also expect that a lot of in-service lines do not even meet the original height spec - land levels alter as things are ploughed, and ground is graded,  spans droop over time or pole shift a bit, and a multitude of other factors.

It is tragic and impressive when it goes wrong, but it is still very rare. The fastest short term is to publicise what it should look like and get farmers etc to self report if the lines over their land look a bit loopy

I've also heard/read that shrouded OHLs can cause an increased in downed lines due to lighting strikes: With bare conductors, once struck the arc will travel along the lines and spreading thermal effects along the length, but if insulated it can't so the arc effectively rooted, causing pin-point heating