Industry Highlights

It’s hard to believe that utility line personnel are not thought of as first responders – electricity is an essential service, and someone needs to get things back up and running.  Yet, these [...]

Electric utilities should have a plan in place focused on winterizing the grid when needed.  Winter weather presents unique risks to both reliability and recovery, but there are various steps [...]

In September 2020, the National Weather Service (NWS) deployed an upgraded ensemble forecast model that should provide a boost to emergency preparedness efforts and help save lives.  The beauty [...]

The viability of wearable safety devices for utility crews got a big boost when FirstEnergy announced that it is providing personal voltage readers to its line workers and utility [...]

The Cameron Peak fire is now officially the largest Colorado wildfire on record, destroying over 200,000 acres as of the time of this writing, and forcing tens of thousands to evacuate.  Thanks [...]

I just read an interesting article focused on wildfire recovery pitfalls, a very timely topic considering the disturbing magnitude of the wildfires on the west coast.  Although the article is [...]

Rising sea levels might lead to the worst disaster scenario ever seen in the utility industry, mainly because it’s a scenario that could wipe out thousands of miles of land, making it completely [...]

It goes without saying that emergency preparedness is my sweet spot, but a related topic is the notion of PR crisis planning.  Public relations has always been an important part of utility [...]

We don’t talk too much about hailstorm events on this blog, but perhaps we should – apparently hailstorms are the most expensive storm hazard for the insurance industry, with damages from a [...]

I’ve written about microgrids multiple times in the past, but now a new variation has been introduced – the nanogrid.  Both have similarities and differences, yet both can be used to provide a [...]