Written by Josh Filler, Vice President & Chief Operating Officer - Electric Operations

"When an outage occurs, it is not as simple as having a lineman "reset" a breaker or "close in" a switch."

As I sit here on March 15, 2024, we are wrapping up restoration efforts on the second tornado-related outage event in three weeks. It is unprecedented for us and presents challenges to our team, both in coordinating those kinds of restoration efforts and physically repairing damaged facilities from the storm. As spring storms hit our system, it is a good time to share what our restoration process looks like in both small and large outage events. 

Outage Awareness

Let’s first start with how we become aware of outages. We have several sources of information that feed into what we call our Outage Management System (OMS). The information comes from meters reporting they have lost power, from members calling in an outage or submitting the outage in the Smarthub app, and from the general public or emergency services groups (Sheriff's and Fire Department, EMS or State Highway Patrol). All that information feeds into our OMS system and predicts where the outage has occurred. We also have predictions to isolate the device on our system with damage or a fault. We use this data to direct our line crews to a specific location.

On-Call Crews

The Energy Cooperative always has a crew on call for outages and emergencies. For day-to-day outages that occur, our electric control center calls the on-call crew to respond to that outage. Our crews arrive on-site anywhere from 30-60 minutes from the time they get the call. This depends where the outage is on the system and if they have other outages to respond to first. 

Upon arriving, the crew assesses the line for damage and repair, as necessary. Depending on the extent of the damage, this could take minutes to hours. The outage could be as simple as a tree limb falling and bouncing off the line, to broken poles, downed wires and trees needing removed. Therefore, total outage times can range from 30-60 minutes to several hours. 

When an outage occurs, it is not as simple as having a lineman "reset" a breaker or "close in" a switch. An outage is caused by a fault on the system. Devices, such as fuses, reclosers and breakers operate and open the line to clear the fault. This is done to minimize any damage to the system and protect the public by de-energizing the line. Our crews need to assess what has happened and resolve the issue before those devices can be closed or a fuse can be re-fused, and power restored.

Larger Outages

When it comes to larger outage events, like the ones we had in February and the middle of March, it becomes a more coordinated effort. In larger outages, we call in multiple line crews and additional employees help with damage assessment and respond to downed wire calls. We pull in our forestry crews to assist our line crews in clearing out trees before lines can be repaired and restored. The first few hours of a major storm event, we are assessing the damage in the field. This helps determine what kind of resources and materials we might need and helps us determine if we need to call on assistance from contract crews or call for mutual aid, which is assistance from other cooperatives. 

Restoral Method

From a coordination standpoint, we restore the most members first and work our way down to the smaller outages. This typically results in us focusing on facilities in the following order: transmission, substations, feeders, single phase lines and ultimately members’ individual services. For multi-day outage events, we have to begin thinking about crews’ rest time, lodging, meals, fuel, and a multitude of other factors that begin to affect the operations when outages span multiple days.

"We never want to see outages, but we cannot control mother nature. In conjunction with the cooperative’s communications team, we try our best to keep you informed of what we see and what kind of outage times to expect. Our team appreciates your patience during power outages. You can be assured that we will always restore power as quickly and safely as possible."