“It looks like we’re going to get some relief from this heat spell,” said Jim Trebinski, CEO of Upland Power & Light, to Fred Urwin, his V.P. of engineering. Jim had just checked the five-day weather report on his Blackberry. The heat index had been over 100 degrees almost every day for three weeks.
Jim had been with Upland for only five months, and was still learning about the company, its customers and its opportunities. The investor-owned utility served some 3.7 million residential and industrial consumers. Jim and Fred were meeting to prepare for next week’s quarterly presentation to the board of directors.
“You know the culprit,” Fred said. “It’s air conditioning. My reports show power usage up 15.3% so far this month compared to August last year. Last week we set a daily usage record and then, just yesterday, we broke the new record. We’ve asked our commercial customers to shut down elevators and turn on only 50% of their lights during the afternoon and early evening. But that’s not winning us any friends out there.”
Jim glanced out the window at the setting sun. For the past several weeks the television newscasts had done their part and asked viewers not to run washers and other electrical devices between 4 and 9 p.m. Of course, the news people had brought up the Northeast Blackout of 2003; they always did. Maybe such connections would make the public and the PUC understand that Upland can’t keep supplying them more and more power without further investments, which would ultimately require some form of rate increase. He turned his attention back to Fred.
“For the past three weeks we’ve been running 12-hour shifts to respond to scattered outages from overloads,” Fred said. “Good thing we budgeted for the overtime.”
“I don’t want to have to budget for it,” responded Jim quickly. “There have to be better ways of managing peak demand so we won’t face this exact same situation next year. I have to present some concrete proposals to the board. Do you have any ideas that we can implement in the next 12 months?”
What action should Fred recommend Jim take to the Board to relieve Upland Power & Light’s capacity issues in the short and long term?
>> Click here to see the solution of Clinton Davis, Industry Solution Manager, Smart Grid, for Ventyx, an ABB company.
>> Click here to see the solution of Gary Rackliffe, Vice President for Smart Grids North America at ABB.