New design for Offenbach electricity boxes

Starting this week, Energienetze Offenbach GmbH (ENO) is not only making the city look more attractive with weatherproof design covers for its distribution cabinets in Offenbach's city center, but is also drawing attention to its daily work to ensure a reliable power supply. From now on, a total of 40 ENO electricity boxes will shine in beautiful shades of blue instead of plain gray. "What is even more important, however, is that we have a secure power grid in Offenbach," said Paul-Gerhard Weiß, Head of the Building and Planning Department, yesterday evening when inspecting a designer cover on the ENO distribution box in the immediate vicinity of the Haus der Stadtgeschichte. "With the new covers," Weiß also hopes as a side effect, "that the illegal graffiti on the distribution boxes will be curbed."

According to ENO data, there were only 9 minutes of supply interruptions per customer in Offenbach's electricity grid in the whole of 2023. This value is below the German average of 10 minutes in 2022. "This good value in Offenbach is not without reason: We are continuously investing in grid security and have also established an excellent safety concept in the event of incidents," reports Dr. Christoph Meier, CEO of Energieversorgung Offenbach GmbH (EVO). The grid operator ENO is a wholly owned subsidiary of EVO. "We are pleased that we have a strong and energetic company like EVO and its ENO subsidiary in our city group, which guarantee a reliable energy supply," adds City Treasurer Martin Willhelm.

According to Dr. Meier, the ENO on-call service is an important part of this concept, as its technicians live throughout the entire network area. "If a fault occurs in Offenbach, for example, the fitters there can quickly find and rectify the fault," Dr. Meier continues. "We call this 'starting from the area' because the fitters can start directly from home and don't have to go to the EVO premises on Andréstrasse first. This saves time and reduces downtime."

Last but not least, the entire network in the Offenbach district is structured according to the so-called "n minus 1 criterion". This means that the power supply of every municipality in the district is ensured by at least two substations. If, for example, a short circuit occurs on a cable, the power is automatically switched off at the nearest substation, just like a fuse. As soon as the affected cable has been identified and the fault localized, the power supply can be put back into operation. "This allows us to offer the people of our region maximum security and reliability in the power supply," said Dr. Meier.

A total of 40 distribution cabinets in the Offenbach city area have been covered with the special design covers. The covers bear the motto "Safe. Reliable. Close. Our energy for Offenbach". Thanks to the weatherproof material, the distribution cabinets are protected from the elements such as sun, rain and snow.