Tag Archives: power utilities

Quality Failures Can Leave You In the Dark

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July 13, 2019, a massive power outage plunged a significant portion of New York City into darkness. The outage began Saturday just before 7:00 pm. 73,000 people were in the dark until just after midnight. 

A five-hour power outage may seem relatively insignificant. It certainly pales in comparison to some other more famous power outages. For example, on March 31, 2015, 70 million people in Turkey were without power for more than seven hours. On July 31, 2012, 670 million people in India lost power for between two and eight hours. The famous North American blackout on August 14, 2003 impacted significant portions of the northwestern U.S. and Canada, with more than 50 million people in the dark for between 16-72 hours in the USA and up to 192 hours in Canada. (Veloza and Santamaria 2016)  

New York, however, is one of the world’s most significant metropolitan centres, the hub for a financial network that spans the globe. When a location like New York loses critical infrastructure, the impacts cascade and resonate across financial, transportation, and business systems. 

Power … Read more...

Edison Electric Institute, Elon Musk & the Future of Utilities

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Last week marked the Edison Electric Institute (EEI) annual convention, which was held this year in New Orleans and hosted 800 utility executives from June 7-10.

The 2015 convention was an unusual one. In the past, the electrical utility industry has not always been especially interested in discussing alternative forms of energy. This year’s event, however, promised to “showcase the ideas and innovations that are transforming the future of the electric power sector.” The convention delivered, kicking off the week with a discussion featuring Tesla founder Elon Musk. A bold choice, given recent global headlines that range from “Musk Battery Works Fill Utilities with Fear and Promise” (December 2014, Bloomberg) to “Elon Musk is Both Utility Killer and Utility Savior” (May 2015, Business Spectator). To say that the industry’s feelings are mixed might be an understatement.

The electric utility industry is a large market responsible for $372 … Read more...

Make sure you aren’t overlooking safety observations….

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In the world of Power Utilities, the idea of recordable incidents, corrective actions, refresher training, etc. often comes up. What is becoming more and more apparent with an increase in overall Safety Awareness is a move towards safety observations and exchanges.

Employees are now, more than ever, being encouraged to record an observation around safety to be more proactive and prevent future incidents from taking place. Always looking for and recognizing potential hazards doesn’t mean there’s a need for more training or a “process” to be launched, it can just be something for other employees should be made aware of; either by recording it in a system or just a discussion over the water cooler or during a monthly evaluation with management.

Safety exchanges are shared at the start of meetings, or again during employee evaluations to further promote safety awareness company-wide. As a result of this proactive behavior, we’re … Read more...