Baby, it’s hot outside

When I was small, I used to march around our farmhouse in the winter singing a version of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” that old popular jazz tune that was revived multiple times by more artists than I can personally count. I still admit to humming that tune on occasion. Okay, yes, sometimes I still sing it, too, but this summer I’ve done my own adaptation of the chorus to “baby, it’s hot outside.”

As summer temperatures cook not just the relatively small percentage of sweaty people here in Oklahoma, who are rather used to summer heat, but also folks in places as far north as Minneapolis and Boston, concerns about whether our power infrastructure can keep up with the demand are inevitable. And, with a few minor exceptions, this major heat anomaly hasn’t really caused too much trouble for utilities. But, then again, utilities are planners. It’s the job of planners---you might even say their calling---to be prepared for anomalies.

And some of that planning includes demand response (DR) programs. This week, Con Edison's New York customers used a terawatt hour, or 1 trillion watt hours of electricity, according to the utility. (I love the wording of the press release on this heat wave response. They wrote: "That's a lot of juice. In fact, it's about the amount of electricity Vermont uses in two months.")

Con Edison gave credit to their DR program for curbing what could have been an even more record-breaking response. They assured people that, while a terawatt is a whole lot of power, things could have been worse if they didn’t have customers willing to respond to “calls for conservation,” as the company labeled them.

EnerNOC, Inc., a provider of demand response applications and services, announced that its DemandSMART network was dispatched at record levels this July as well in response to the heat wave---or “heat dome,” as the weather guys have been labeling it.

EnerNOC's network responded to a series of dispatches from grid operators and utility partners, providing about 1,230 MW of DR overall. One of the grid operators that EnerNOC works with, PJM Interconnection, set a new record for peak power use in July at 158,450 MW.

Demand response has been so helpful, it even got press in The New York Times this month. The paper discussed demand response options with North American Electric Reliability Corp.’s (NERC’s) John Moura, manager of reliability assessments. Moura labeled the DR available around the country as “imperative” in weathering the heat.

The Christian Science Monitor also did a piece on the wonders of energy efficiency and demand response in this oppressive heat, and they also quoted NERC, though they chose Mark Lauby, vice president of reliability assessment. (And, along with DR, they cited a weak economy as a factor. The concept is: We didn’t being this race at the starting line, but, instead, a few feet behind the starting line. So, the recession dip has helped demand not get too darn crazy, even with the heat. What they’re basically saying is that things would be a lot worse if the recession hadn’t already cut back on that power demand.)

So, worries about whether we have enough power seem unfounded, even as temperatures continue to break regional glass ceilings and power use sets national records. There are small issues in isolated pockets: Oncor is currently struggling to return power to a Dallas neighborhood for an outage cause by trees and not heat, though heat is exacerbating the problem. Baltimore Gas and Electric is getting complaints about their demand response program from people who think their air conditioning was turned off for too long during the blistering heat. And here in Tulsa, the local news is reporting record setting power use for the city and surrounding area.

Overall, though, we have to all admit that this old, cobbled together, partially updated, partially archaic power system that we have is doing very, very well for the stress we’re putting her under this summer. She keeps working, chugging along despite the desire we all have to sing “baby, it’s hot outside” and turn up the thermostat a couple of degrees.

Post show: Texas linemen conquer in Seguin

The 2011 Texas Lineman's Rodeo in Seguin, Texas was quite the event last weekend.

That humid Saturday in late July, the gray of potential rain gave way to the type of fluffy white clouds normally wallpapered onto a child's bedroom wall.

But, clouds weren't the only items in the sky that day. There were also a lot of linemen hanging from poles, posted inside buckets at the long-line end of work trucks' mobile arms or crawling up to T-poles with clouds nipping at both toes and hard hats.

There was no keeping those boys from the bright Texas sky.

Working from 7 a.m. into the afternoon, the competition was fierce. Winners this year include individuals, cooperatives, munis and IOUs. The first place overall journeyman award went to Ryan Voges, Justin Green and Darin Koehler of New Braunfels Utilities with the division winner for cooperatives going to John Hernanez, Brad Downum and Mark Jebbia with Bandera Electric Cooperative.

Gergory Chelette, Richard Schwartz and John F. Kent brought in the overall journeyman team for investor-owned utilities, while that Voges-Green-Koehler team grabbed the municipal top spot. In the overall journeyman team, senior division, the winners were David McDowell, Danny Moss and Larry Terry with Farmers Electric Cooperative.

All the 2011 rodeo winners are listed on the Texas Lineman's Rodeo website at http://www.tlra.org/.

Additionally, keep an eye out for the September issue of POWERGRID International magazine which will feature more photos from the rodeo in living color, as they used to say.

Linemen tough out a blistering rodeo

As you read this, I’ll be in Seguin Texas for the 15th Annual Texas Lineman’s Rodeo. Seguin is a small town about thirty minutes outside of San Antonio along I-10, and I fully expect it will be a hot spot this coming weekend, in both competition and summer temperatures.

The Texas Lineman’s Rodeo is sponsored by the Texas Lineman's Rodeo Association, Inc. (TLRA), which is “a non-profit organization created to offer line workers in the great State of Texas a way to showcase their pride in the profession of high voltage line work.” Comprised mostly of volunteers who offer their time, efforts and organizational skills for free, the TLRA works hard to put on this rodeo every summer. Having been personally corresponding with volunteer Gloria Christmas for about a month now, I have to say that the TLRA is both highly organized and highly friendly. She’s been a real sweetheart in getting information out. (And, in case you’re interested in coming down to Seguin this weekend, she let me know yesterday that some hotel rooms have opened up at the Days Inn in Seguin.)

2010’s rodeo winners included folks from Farmers Electric Cooperative, Hilco Electric Cooperative, Guadalupe Valley Electric Cooperative, CenterPoint Energy, Austin Energy, New Braunfels Utilities, Hamilton Country Electric Cooperative, Mid-South Synergy, Sam Houston Electric Cooperative, Trinity Valley Electric Cooperative, Bluebonnet Electric Cooperative, Bryan Texas Utilities, Perdernales Electric Cooperative, Garland Power & Light, Midwest Electric and Navasota Valley Electric Cooperative. Those winners stretched across a number of categories: journeyman awards, division winners (including a 45-and-older senior division), event awards (like changing a single phase capacitor, doing an amp switch change or a pole climb) and rescue events.

If you’re thinking of joining us in the wild Texas heat for the 15th Texas Lineman’s Rodeo, the activities start Friday night on Nolte Island in Seguin with a t-shirt trade and a fish fry, but all the rodeo action happens on Saturday. That’s when you’ll see those linemen skills put to the test and rewarded for their efforts---with rewards in both awards and barbeque form.

More information on the rodeo can be found on the TLRA website: www.tlra.org

Amsterdam gets smarter and smarter, and we get left behind

If you’re an American reader of this blog, chances are good that you don’t live in a smart city. I certainly don’t. Not that Tulsa is peopled by the ignorant, no. This isn’t about individual intelligence or grading our education system. It’s just that our power isn’t exactly the cutting edge smart grid stuff of legend. We’ve been talking about the smart grid since 2007---how it can save us all from a bleak energy future with smarter meters, smarter switchgear, smarter energy delivery, even interconnected and informed (and therefore smarter) consumers.

But, few of us here in the U.S. have seen any real smart grid progress. A small percentage in some well-funded pilot hot spots has seen smart meters being installed. Some have tried out a few pushes in energy management concepts---although both Google and Microsoft’s energy management goals have fallen decidedly short. Both companies have called a halt to their consumer-oriented smart grid visions. But, no real vision of smart cites and collaboration is popping up in these parts. We seem to take one step forward and two steps back with smart grid on U.S. soil.

Still, there are cities in this world that are pushing forward and showing significant progress in the smart grid concept, even moving ahead to incorporate other options and other utilities in an overarching concept of a “smart city.” One of those is Amsterdam.

Last year, I took a personal guided tour of “Climate Street” in Amsterdam. A long row of traditional looking shops along a narrow street, these businesses were all invested in the idea of energy management and smarter consumption. From bars to record stores to chocolate shops, they partnered with the city and the local grid operator Liander to put in smarter equipment and keep an eye on the energy bottom line. And all that collaboration and progress didn’t seem to impact the end product one bit. The beer was still tasty, the bitterballen still toasty and the chocolate still melt-in-the-mouth delicious.

Even though I don’t cover Europe much anymore, I still keep up with Amsterdam’s Smart City initiatives, including Climate Street. Perhaps I’m just fascinated that a culture, a group of business people, a city, residents, and the local grid company, along with a research group, can all get along so well. As an American who still sees our sense of rugged individualism in myself and pretty much everyone else in this country, including utilities and businesses, it’s positively amazing to witness such smooth and steady cooperation.

This week, Amsterdam’s Smart City announced a new partner, KPN. (I admit to being on their e-mail list. As I said, I’m fascinated.) KPN is a fiber optics connection. So, Amsterdam has a new partner that can bring all sorts of smart grid consumer options to the equation, as well as positioning the city for a very collaborative, very interactive, very digitally high tech fiber future. And the announcement must have mentioned the word “cooperation” eight times in four paragraphs.

Perhaps investing in the smart grid, at its core, doesn’t start with the technology or even with cash on the table. Perhaps there’s a real lesson in Amsterdam’s Smart City progress that we can mull over in the U.S.: Can we get further ahead if we set aside “who’s paying” and “who’s benefiting right now” and “how does this make my personal life better immediately” and start thinking a bit more collectively?

Is cooperation the first step to a smarter grid and smarter cities?