Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Here on news radio seven forty KTRH Houston's Morning News.
Brad Detungent joins us. He's vice president of regulatory policy
at Center Point. They've got a forty point initiative that's
underway of how much of the work has already started, Brad.
As far as trying to make the grid more resilient, Yeah,
thank you, good morning.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
So far, we're we're looking at three major initiatives to
kind of describe our resiliency initiatives. The first one is
the tree trimming, the vegetation management where the greatest impact
onto our system during a hurricane barrel and we've committed
to doing an additional two thousand miles of vegetation management.
(00:41):
We're just under six hundred miles completed so far. To
make our system more resilient, we're installing these manufactured fiberglass
polls that are not only stronger than what you see
with wood, but have the flexibility to help survive the
high impact wins. We're just over three hundred of those
(01:02):
polls that have been installed as part of our commitment.
And third, and finally, we have automated devices that we
call trip savers. This saves the trip of a field
technician to go out inspect the line, re energize it
when a fuse goes out or during a storm. So
we're actually our goal was to have three hundred of
(01:24):
those installed. We just got over three hundred in already.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Are you looking over your plans the way I understand it?
A lot of the people who came in from out
of state these contracts, this was a mess in terms
of how you would marshal the troops and how you
would deploy them during that hurricane. Are you revising and
going back and looking at that system too.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Well, We're always looking at ways to improve and I
think when we look at the amount of work, as
you said, it's a lot to try to get the
resources out deployed, get them out working and efficiently. I
think we've had some proven methods of being able to
do that. I think when you look at the over
(02:08):
a million customers restored within forty eight hours, that we
were able to do that with the planning necessary. I
think the big issue that we saw where we have
the greatest improvement was on the communication side.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Well, we had the hurricane that just went through Florida.
Everybody had their power back basically within seventy two hours there.
So obviously it can be done. I think the criticism
and the concern is why wasn't this done before? Why
did it take such a cataclysmic event for this to
be happening now when that type of maintenance should have
been happening all along.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
So every storm is unique and different. And what we
saw here, and you want to look specifically at the
reach that we had, we had higher winds, wind speeds
that even exceeded Hurricane Ike. We were on the dirty
side and it was an observation of the winter that
we had that were that, you know, the cold winters
(03:01):
that we had. We had a drought and an extensive
rains and that caused trees to be completely uprooted and
fall outside that are outside of our easements onto our lines,
causing that damage.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
How much power do you have to go into private property?
Is it only easements that you can control on how
much of the burden is falling on private property owners
toe or do you not have enough broadside of easement
in order to take care of this?
Speaker 2 (03:30):
So with the easements that we have, it's typically about
five feet that's behind customers backyards and then it's about
twenty feet above in the air, so we have anywhere
from ten to fifteen feet to trim around our power lines.
You almost think of it as like a field goal.
Is the way that the Eastman is defined.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
So you've got the new website up. Of course, it
hasn't really been tested yet because we haven't had a
major storm up until now. But the point blank ask you, Brad,
if we were to have another Category one hurricane, a
similar event happened, let's say three weeks from now, would
the results be any different than they were with Barrel
as far as how quickly you'd be able to resore power.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Absolutely, And the reason being is because this is a
cloud based application. What we had before is we had
an audage tracker that had worked. It had worked in
Hurricane Nicholas, it had worked on our system all the
way up until the Dred Show, until it had sailed.
Then it had failed because of the excessive traffic that
had seen from data mining, data scrapers, all the people
(04:35):
contacting it trying to get the information, the overflow. And
now that we have a brand new application that is
cloud based, we no longer will have that issue.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
All right. Thanks for joining us, Brad. Appreciate it. Brad
To Dungeon, vice president of Regulatory Policy. At Centerpoint, it
is
Here on news radio seven forty KTRH Houston's Morning News.
Brad Detungent joins us. He's vice president of regulatory policy
at Center Point. They've got a forty point initiative that's
underway of how much of the work has already started, Brad.
As far as trying to make the grid more resilient, Yeah,
thank you, good morning.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
So far, we're we're looking at three major initiatives to
kind of describe our resiliency initiatives. The first one is
the tree trimming, the vegetation management where the greatest impact
onto our system during a hurricane barrel and we've committed
to doing an additional two thousand miles of vegetation management.
(00:41):
We're just under six hundred miles completed so far. To
make our system more resilient, we're installing these manufactured fiberglass
polls that are not only stronger than what you see
with wood, but have the flexibility to help survive the
high impact wins. We're just over three hundred of those
(01:02):
polls that have been installed as part of our commitment.
And third, and finally, we have automated devices that we
call trip savers. This saves the trip of a field
technician to go out inspect the line, re energize it
when a fuse goes out or during a storm. So
we're actually our goal was to have three hundred of
(01:24):
those installed. We just got over three hundred in already.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Are you looking over your plans the way I understand it?
A lot of the people who came in from out
of state these contracts, this was a mess in terms
of how you would marshal the troops and how you
would deploy them during that hurricane. Are you revising and
going back and looking at that system too.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Well, We're always looking at ways to improve and I
think when we look at the amount of work, as
you said, it's a lot to try to get the
resources out deployed, get them out working and efficiently. I
think we've had some proven methods of being able to
do that. I think when you look at the over
(02:08):
a million customers restored within forty eight hours, that we
were able to do that with the planning necessary. I
think the big issue that we saw where we have
the greatest improvement was on the communication side.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Well, we had the hurricane that just went through Florida.
Everybody had their power back basically within seventy two hours there.
So obviously it can be done. I think the criticism
and the concern is why wasn't this done before? Why
did it take such a cataclysmic event for this to
be happening now when that type of maintenance should have
been happening all along.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
So every storm is unique and different. And what we
saw here, and you want to look specifically at the
reach that we had, we had higher winds, wind speeds
that even exceeded Hurricane Ike. We were on the dirty
side and it was an observation of the winter that
we had that were that, you know, the cold winters
(03:01):
that we had. We had a drought and an extensive
rains and that caused trees to be completely uprooted and
fall outside that are outside of our easements onto our lines,
causing that damage.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
How much power do you have to go into private property?
Is it only easements that you can control on how
much of the burden is falling on private property owners
toe or do you not have enough broadside of easement
in order to take care of this?
Speaker 2 (03:30):
So with the easements that we have, it's typically about
five feet that's behind customers backyards and then it's about
twenty feet above in the air, so we have anywhere
from ten to fifteen feet to trim around our power lines.
You almost think of it as like a field goal.
Is the way that the Eastman is defined.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
So you've got the new website up. Of course, it
hasn't really been tested yet because we haven't had a
major storm up until now. But the point blank ask you, Brad,
if we were to have another Category one hurricane, a
similar event happened, let's say three weeks from now, would
the results be any different than they were with Barrel
as far as how quickly you'd be able to resore power.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Absolutely, And the reason being is because this is a
cloud based application. What we had before is we had
an audage tracker that had worked. It had worked in
Hurricane Nicholas, it had worked on our system all the
way up until the Dred Show, until it had sailed.
Then it had failed because of the excessive traffic that
had seen from data mining, data scrapers, all the people
(04:35):
contacting it trying to get the information, the overflow. And
now that we have a brand new application that is
cloud based, we no longer will have that issue.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
All right. Thanks for joining us, Brad. Appreciate it. Brad
To Dungeon, vice president of Regulatory Policy. At Centerpoint, it
is
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