Working Together

The degree of how wrong that statement is can’t be over emphasized. In reality they are a state of the art, high tech, electric provider known as Roosevelt County Electric Co-op. Shock number one (no pun intended… well… a little pun intended) is not only do they cover Roosevelt County but their services extend into 5 counties. With 84 years of experience, 2,676 miles of line and 6,060 meters, their technical operations made this nerd feel like I was sitting in the ‘situation room’ at the White House.

Yesterday morning Councilors Merrick, Self and Racker joined City workers Eric Duran and Chris Mendoza along with Larry Levacy, Tom Dewitt and myself for a conference presentation by Eric Segovia and staff. This might seem an odd alliance, but it is a perfect example of what we can do when community comes together.

Our tour started with a presentation, by Eric Segovia, of the Co-op SCADA system. SCADA stands for ‘Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition’. In a very condensed nutshell this system gives the co-op the capability of monitoring and controlling their entire service grid remotely. The implications are huge. From the aspect of human safety. In the event of a downed power line or worker injury this automation can react in milliseconds to make critical decisions and provide location and communication. Additionally, service interruptions can be pinpointed and re-routed in a split second for customers. Additional commentary was made by Jeremy Neil and Tillman Stevens regarding a complementary software, ArcGis, showing how electric grids could be designed and modified utilizing a vast array of 3D terrain information allowing for the best decisions to be made and mistakes avoided. These digital advances make providing utility service far more precise and efficient reducing cost, miles and reaction times.

Why the odd union? The City is right on the edge of having technology that can communicate remotely within their system. It takes a worker a full day to drive our well fields. Problems sometimes have to become ‘bigger’ problems before they are even known about. The SCADA system for the City would benefit our water situation greatly because ‘the task of many can be performed by the few’. Staffing will always be a challenge in labor-oriented situations. Additionally, the City could gain valuable insight that would allow better critical water decisions to be made.

The Roosevelt County Electric Co-op extended a hand shake to offer our City and Community the willingness to help in any way they possibly could. Considering they are experts in this technology it seemed very fitting for this meeting to take place.

After presentations we were taken to a substation to witness this technology in action. I never gave a second thought to these large electric sub stations. This place was meticulous. Every piece of gravel in it’s place, clean and organized. Mr. Neil explained many of the functions of the station and then we were given a demonstration by Brian Gonzales as they switched power on one element of the grid. Hearing 600,000 volts of electricity connect is pretty much indescribable. The eerie ‘thunk’ of that power disconnect and connecting is … well I said indescribable, so I won’t try. This was followed by a demonstrations of the automated swing arm switches connecting and disconnecting on a taller tower.

This was an eye opening, fascinating experience for the ones of us ‘unexperienced’ in this area. The implications of benefits that could be afforded to our City and our water situation, by what the Co-op has shown us in their world and their offer of a helping hand is a major milestone for this City. This is the second milestone in two weeks. I hope folks have patience as the work continues to seek solutions to our resource issues. To Eric Segovia, Jeremy Neil, Tillman Stevens, Brian Gonzales and the entire Roosevelt County Electric Co-op staff thank you so much for your time, information and support!