Balance of power: the supply and demand of lineman minutes.(SECTIONS: T&D)

It's interesting how successful electric utilities have to deal with a couple of laws that have nothing to do with regulatory mandates.

The laws of physics dictate that at any time, the amount of kilowatt hours of electricity produced must equal the amount of kilowatt hours consumed. As the demand for electricity fluctuates throughout the day, utilities must adjust the amount of power they generate. Failure to do so can result in outages or costly purchases of power from other sources.

The laws of economics dictate that to get the most efficiency from their workforces, electric utilities must balance existing lineman resources with demand for their services. More specifically, electric companies must balance the available time linemen can spend on projects such as installation, construction, maintenance and repairs and the number of minutes required to complete those projects. Failure to balance lineman availability and demand can result in overtime, scheduling issues, productivity loss, customer dissatisfaction and even decreased revenue.

Electric companies have spent millions of dollars and invested countless hours developing a system of interlocking technologies, business models and supervisory processes that enables them to automatically and manually balance the supply and demand of kilowatt hours. But the industry as a whole has not applied the same focus or effort to balancing the supply and demand of lineman minutes. While most electric utilities have systems in place to ensure field technicians respond quickly to a downed power line, few have systems in place to accurately forecast demand for lineman minutes months or even years in advance.

By drawing on the lessons learned from balancing kilowatt hour supply and demand, electric companies can map out strategies for balancing lineman minutes to more efficiently manage their field workforce. Doing so will help them increase efficiency, boost productivity, reduce costs and increase revenues. There are similarities between the forces that affect kilowatt hours and lineman minutes and utilities can effectively manage their workforces based on future demand.

Understanding marginal costs

Every electric utility is familiar with marginal costs--the cost of producing one more kilowatt hour. As demand rises through the day, power companies often have to increase the output of higher-cost plants, or bring in the power via more expensive transmission lines. This means that generation of electricity production now becomes more expensive for each additional kilowatt-hour, ultimately reducing profit.