Wildfires

Best Practices

February 27, 2012

ERCOT Drought Workshop

Austin, Texas

DRAFT

Mexico

LA

AR

Oklahoma

Texas

New Mexico

DallasDallasDallasDallasDallasDallasDallasDallasDallas

HoustonHoustonHoustonHoustonHoustonHoustonHoustonHoustonHouston

Colorado

Illinois

Kansas Missouri

AustinAustinAustinAustinAustinAustinAustinAustinAustin

Oncor Facts

Service Area Population:

Meter Points of Delivery:

Transmission Circuit Miles

(345, 138 and 69 kV):

Distribution Circuit Miles:

Substations:

DistributionTransmission Retail Electric Providers (REP)

Generators

Oncor - wires only - no generation; no sales of electricity

7,300,000

3,260,000

15,341

103,436

995

Telvent Weather System

Drought conditions combined with high winds and low humidity can result in wildfires affecting Oncor’s service area

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Admin. (NOAA)

Wildfire: Any large fire that spreads rapidly and is hard to extinguish.

Red Flag Warnings are generated by NOAA ( National Weather Service) in counties that have weather conditions conducive to having fires occur.

A RED FLAG WARNING MEANS THAT CRITICAL FIRE WEATHER CONDITIONS ARE EITHER OCCURRING NOW...OR WILL SHORTLY. A COMBINATION OF STRONG WINDS...LOW RELATIVE HUMIDITY...AND WARM TEMPERATURES WILL CREATE EXPLOSIVE FIRE GROWTH POTENTIAL.

NOAA broadcasts Warnings( weather, Red Flag and other warnings) every two (2) minutes. These Red Flag Warnings are saved to a PI server which in turn, encodes them in an ICCP format and transmits the data to the Transmission Management System (TMS). The TMS turns on /off a Red/Yellow box visually indicating a Red Flag Warning.

Red Flag Warnings

NOAA

Station one - line screen

Feeder Summary screen

Transmission End to End screen

Red Flag Conditions

Transmission and distribution procedures have been implemented that minimize creating a fire hazard when reclosing breakers on lines in areas where a Red Flag Warning has been issued.

Transmission:  When a transmission line locks out under Red Flag conditions (NOAA issued fire danger warning), TG Controller will typically not attempt to re-energize that line or line section until field inspection results are known. Mitigating factors to this decision might be:

Location of fault using Digital Fault Recorder (DFR) System reliability with no other safety issue

TG Controller always has ability to act as it pertains to safety and reliability.

Distribution: procedure is DOC Controller will typically not attempt to reclose feeder breaker until field inspection results are known or Supervisor approves based on mitigating factors similar to Transmission.

Our job is not to fight wildfires, but to maintain

our assets to safely operate the electric grid.

Best Practices

1. Team: Best to send two people

2 Vehicle: Each team needs a vehicle, water tank and sprayer

a. Support vehicle with water tank large enough to refill each team 2 or 3 time

3. Work Practices:

a. If possible get to line ahead of fire. Clean around poles with shovels, then wet pole at least 5’ high

b. If fire has passed fall in behind and wet all poles. Then go back thru and re-soak all poles again. Poles can flare back up even after they have been soaked once

Additional Best Practices

4. Safety:

a. Appoint one man to head up the fire teams and conduct tailboards

b. Switch out line if possible

c. Keep constant watch on fire location and conditions of poles

d. If frames are too far gone, switch out line and drop customers

e. At next safety meeting talk about response, any problems that occurred and how to best fix the problems that occurred

5. PPE: Use normal PPE / FR clothing issued to employees

a. Abundance of bottled water

6. Proactive communication with law enforcement

a. Supervisor will contact fire marshal or incident commander

b. Talk to state and local law enforcement officers as to what we are doing and where we will be

Additional Best Practices after Wildfire

Personnel

1. Have Oncor employees make an assessment of damage ( line and substation )a. Get intelligence from airplane or helicopter

2. Have an engineer on site

3. Have good list of contractors ( along with their safety representative on site )a. Have one point of contact with contractorb. Have enough FCC inspectors available for the work going on and have one

point of contact FCC

4. Have an extra Oncor supervisor or manager representative in areaa. Utilize for material coordination, sending out update notes up, etc.b. Coordinate activities with the distribution, Co-op, etc.

Additional Best Practices after Wildfires

Safety Concerns

1. Be aware of different strains on the structures, and wire and what work is being done on either side of your location

2. Be aware of smoke3. Be aware of any oil/gas lines in the area, that could cause additional damage

4. Special safety meetings for wildfire eventsa. Contractor to have daily meeting, discussing the goal for the day and where crews will be working

5. Proactive communications with law enforcementa. In general the DPS and fire marshal will have the roads blocked, Oncor patrol vehicles have a police scanner for general informationb. DPS and fire marshal generally allow Oncor crews into the areas, if they feel that it is safe to do so

Wildfire Deterrent

A review noted that one of the most effective fire deterrents was the wood pole ground line treatment that had been performed in the last couple of years that disturbed the soil surrounding the pole and removed the fire source adjacent to the pole.  Oncor has an on-going wood ground line inspection program that should help to reduce the effects of wildfires on recently treated poles.

Questions