Which statement best describes the effect of sectionalizing on outages?

• A. It concentrates outages by isolating most customers
• B. It allows most customers to receive power and interrupts only the affected lateral
• C. It shortens the duration of all outages
• D. It bypasses the fault automatically

Answer: (B)

Sectionalizing aims to contain faults so that only a small portion of the circuit is de-energized. When a fault occurs, a sectionalizing device detects it and opens the circuit in that specific section, isolating the fault. The rest of the feeder stays energized, so most customers continue to receive power while only the customers on the affected lateral are interrupted. This approach improves reliability by limiting how many customers are affected and speeds restoration for the majority after the fault is cleared or repaired. It does not automatically bypass the fault, nor does it cause outages to be concentrated on more customers, and it doesn’t guarantee shorter outages for every customer since repair time still matters.