Man bites dog: Utility reports record dog attacks

By Jeff Postelwait
Online Editor

My background is in newspapers, and reporters have a lot of colorful jargon — not all of which can be used in polite society. One phrase we use that the public at large might know about is "man bites dog." It refers to a story that has novelty. It's the opposite of what you normally hear about.

I immediately thought of that old phrase when I saw Consumers Energy post a release about a record number of dog attacks on their meter readers. Of course, I have a comfortable distance from this problem as my job doesn't require me to wander into strangers' backyards. If I did, I wouldn't be snickering.

In just the last two weeks, according to Consumers, meter readers reported six dog attacks and a record 14 dog bite incidents have happened since the year began. This is compared to six total in 2011. Five of these incidents resulted in injuries, including one that needed hospitalization and stitches to the face and neck.

So what do utility workers do about uncontrolled dogs in the areas they have to service? First of all, utilities are asking their customers to keep their dogs confined to houses or other enclosures. But in some cases, the customers were setting their dogs loose on purpose as the meter reader approached. In an extreme circumstance like that, the utility and its lawyers will be getting involved.

In more routine situations, the meter readers use "dog wands" to distract and divert trouble canines. One version of this tool looks like a tennis ball on a stick. As both a dog owner and someone who has raised a kid successfully through his terrible twos, I understand the value of distracting away from bad behavior.

(Photo credit: Shutterstock)

Employees are instructed not to enter a yard that appears to have an unrestrained dog. In cases like that, the customer's energy use is estimated. The dog doesn't have to appear particularly threatening either — just unrestrained.

"Even the most gentle, well-mannered dog can become protective and aggressive around people it doesn't know," said Michele Kirkland, vice president of energy operations at Consumers.

That is true especially when the owner isn't around to calm the animal down, I would add. Dogs are pack animals, so they look to you for guidance. If you don't have a problem with someone, then neither will the dog in most situations.

Also, people should know when meter readers are coming around. I admit I don't, but many utilities will let you know that using their websites. Consumers is one such utility.

It's in the customer's interest to make sure their dog or dogs aren't running free in the yard because these estimated bills that could result might be higher than the amount of electricity they actually used. So keeping the dog away from the meter reader is good for the bank account as well as the meter reader's stress level.

A solution that takes the dogs, the backyards, and the meter readers out of the equation entirely is smart meters with automated meter reading capability. People might have their qualms about smart meters, but one thing you can't argue with is it would take some of these utility employees out of harm's way.

Utilities, elections, government and grading the stimulus

With about 80 days left to go, the 2012 presidential election is shaping up to be a question of how much the government can or should get involved with the economy, with business and in people's individual lives. Both President Barack Obama and his challenger Gov. Mitt Romney have their own ideas about the role of government, but in the utility industry people demand results.

One of the biggest things the government did for the power industry since the 2008 election is the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. While not always popular with voters, the so-called "stimulus act" allotted a fair chunk of change to the industry, and it's fair to say there are many infrastructure projects that might not have gotten off the ground without that money.

If the utility industry were to give the Recovery Act a three-year report card, it might look something like the points shared with me by Ron Chebra, who is vice president of management and operations consulting with DNV KEMA.

Looking back over the past three years, Chebra said, it's helpful to remember what the point of it all was. The Recovery Act was intended to stabilize state and local government budgets, invest in technological advances, assist those impacted by the recession, boost infrastructure and — most importantly — create jobs and promote recovery.

The Recovery Act included the Smart Grid Investment Grants (SGIG), which were supposed to "accelerate the modernization of the nation's electric transmission and distribution systems and promote investments in smart grid technologies, tools and techniques that increase flexibility, functionality, interoperability, cyber-security, situational awareness and operational efficiency."

In Chebra's analysis, "It is my belief that many energy jobs were created as a result of the stimulus. The greatest areas of positive impact have been in the manufacturing and installation sectors where the rush to build and install millions of smart meters formed a great need for these resources."

But the question that only time can answer is how long will these jobs last? Will they plateaued along with the end of their subsidy, or will they get the ball rolling on something lasting?

"Certainly, with the step change that stimulus created, there seems to be some sluggishness in new U.S. smart meter orders," he writes.

When it comes to helping those affected by the recession and the worldwide credit crunch, the stimulus "definitely" helped spur growth in domestic manufacturing, which had been brought to a near standstill and was at risk of being out-competed by businesses in Europe and China, among others.

Technology innovation, another goal of the act, were accelerated by the flow of money that went into research and development, he said.

"For some time, some of the investments made in the electric infrastructure were directed toward meeting the increasing need for supply; through the initiatives funded by these grants, many of the investments focused on the delivery and demand side," he said.

How to get customers involved and educated when it comes to smart meters has always been a key aspect of smart grid rollouts, and "As we await the tally of realized net benefits of these investments, the trends now show that many of these programs have resulted in greater customer awareness and participation in demand management efforts that will result in sustainable long-term economic benefits."

Some of the bad news that might result from the Department of Energy-funded projects include stumbles in customer engagement. Because of the smart meter rollouts made possible in places like California, there are now grassroots citizens groups advocating against the use of smart meters and their efforts have led to opt-outs.

There's also the problem of utility "haves" and "have-nots." So in the wake of the stimulus, there's now a gap between those whose projects got government funding and those who didn't.

Another problem is the creation of "islands" of automation in the rush to be shovel-ready. These islands now need to be integrated to achieve the benefits anticipated in the business cases, he said.

Fixing the world's biggest blackout

About 10 percent of the world's population lost power recently as a blackout swept across northern India. As many as 700 million people, or twice the population of the U.S., were affected. Fortunately there have been no reports of deaths connected to the blackout, but the loss of power did result in traffic snarls, stranded train passengers and a group of trapped coal miners.

So what can the world's biggest democracy do to help stave off such wide-sweeping outages in the future? To find out, I spoke with Jason Black, a research leader in grid systems with Battelle's Energy, Environment and Material Sciences Global Business.

Black characterized India's power grid as reasonably good on the transmission side, but a bit dodgy on the distribution side. Furthermore, the country has struggled with power shortages as its current generation mix often can't meet the demands of the population.

"In many sections of the country, they use rolling blackouts regularly," Black said. "But I don't think it's as simple as an excessive load. There are protection schemes in place to deal with that."

In recent years, India has worked to encourage investment in new power generation of just about every type, including distributed renewable generation like solar energy, of which India now has about 1 GW.

"Traditionally they have used coal, and they have some hydro as well. They have made some legislation that was meant to increase their renewable capacity — just as a way to try to correct some of their power shortages," he said.

In addition to bringing more generation online, India's grid operators have attempted to interconnect their grid more thoroughly — an approach not without its dangers.

"[Interconnection is] good from one perspective, because the redundancies can address an interruption in one area. But from another perspective, it can increase the risk of cascading power outages, which it appears this one is."

Though its transmission grid is reasonably well developed, India's rapid development and population growth have left it with a distribution system that often falls short of the task of delivering power to those that need it.

"They have had some ongoing problems with electricity theft, which has become a local political problem and leads to losses, making the pull on the system unpredictable. Cleaning up the distribution system would help them a lot," he said.

For one thing, India's grid could implement underfrequency load shedding as is done in the U.S.

"In the U.S., we operate our system at 60 Hertz. This keeps the power flowing in sync, so generators don't trip offline. Imbalances in demand and supply are what cause these kinds of outages — when the generators can't handle the imbalances. That's one way to get these cascading power outages," he said.

To prevent further outages during the restoration process, India's grid operators need to be careful how they manage the grid in the coming days.

"If you're a steam plant and the system has tripped off to protect itself, your steam cools off. It can take many hours to return to service. Depending on how many of their generators have black start capability, that process can take a while," he said.

As generators start spinning again, grid operators have important choices to make.

"There's a trade off. Do I bring on all my generators, or do I bring on a certain subset of customers that I can get to faster?" he said. "If there isn't enough slack in the system when you start up these plants, it can bring the system offline again."

Furthermore, there might be physical damage to the grid that needs fixing — delaying restoration even more.

"There could be parts of the grid that broke... Some transformers that exploded or some circuit breakers that opened. They have to deal with those things before bringing the grid back online," he said.

Black said this blackout is likely one of the worst in history, in terms of the number of people affected. While Indian officials are still investigating the causes, it bears all the telltale signs of a cascading power outage, like the Northeast blackout of 2003, which began in Ohio, ran through New York and into Canada. But even in a blackout so widespread in North America, only 55 million people were affected. It's almost unthinkable to most of us to imagine 700 million people without power.

But that's pretty much how it always goes with power outages, as people in the utility industry know. People don't think about it at all until the lights go out. Then the next day (hopefully) when they come back on, the finger-wagging starts.