“The idea behind this program is to reduce total length of restoration from specific storms, from any kind of catastrophic event. The best way is to find the most outage-prone zones and put them underground.”

As we have experienced the effects of innovation in all aspects of our industry, so too has innovation revolutionized the conversion from “overheading” to undergrounding. Converting selected overhead wires to underground cables has consequently become a compelling option for utilities across the country.

We celebrate this year’s AEIC Top 10 Awards for operational innovation: Commonwealth Edison for advanced distribution protection and for an arc flash simulator, Con Edison for its safety leadership system, Duke Energy for its customer delivery builder concierge, Eversource for its Give Me a Moment tools to address momentary outages, Florida Power & Light for tackling human error in switching, New York Power Authority for private LTE network applications, PPL for vegetation management risk modeling, Tampa Electric for its BlockEnergy distributed energy system, and Tennessee Valley Authority for its safety blitz process.

A conversation with AEIC Chair and Cleco CEO Bill Fontenot and AEIC CEO Steve Hauser.

PUF is excited about the Fortnightly Top Innovators 2021, because their stories are inspiring and uplifting. It's what we all need after a most trying and unusual pandemic time in our lives. It's about looking to the future and making it better.

The Electric Transportation Team works to address customer barriers to EV adoption and build out EV infrastructure. Over the last year, the team has worked to approve and implement the Colorado Transportation Electrification Plan.

During Winter Storm Uri and the power generation shortfall, the Real-Time Operations Team of 44 helped protect the Texas electric grid and prevent a statewide blackout, by complying with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas’s orders to shed load. They simultaneously worked to restore electricity to customers and devise innovative ways to rotate power outages among customers.

The Gas Research, Development, and Demonstration Program Team develops and demonstrates products and technologies that promote decarbonization across the natural gas value chain and a diversified portfolio of clean energy sources, distributed networks, tools, and applications.

Their contributions helped PPL to use Dynamic Line Rating technology successfully to address congestion and market efficiency issues.

The Microgrids and Resiliency Team develops and executes regulations, tariffs, and programs for microgrids to enhance resiliency of the electric grid and reduce barriers for microgrid deployment. Their work has streamlined the interconnection process to ease customer burdens for microgrid installation while maintaining the safety of customers and utility workers, and empowered local and tribal governments looking to leverage microgrids as part of their resiliency planning.