Clark Public Utilities Dispatch is the department that never sleeps.
From their desks, dispatchers watch for trouble on the utility’s entire electrical grid — more than 6,600 miles of electric wire and 60 substations distributed throughout the county — 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
No matter if it’s a maintenance call, a blink in a neighborhood or a substation in trouble, dispatch teams pinpoint the location and orchestrate a response with the crews on the ground. When there’s an outage, it’s a race against time to restore service.
The dispatch office is the nerve center of the utility. Dispatchers work closely with several other departments to coordinate information between planners, engineers and customer service representatives to the line crews and servicemen on the ground.
“Electricity is a critical resource for everyone, but some of our customers depend on it to run life-sustaining medical equipment,” said Greg Van Fleet, Clark Public Utilities dispatch system operator. “We’re very aware of that, so we respond to outages in much the same way firefighters respond to a fire.”
The quick work of utility dispatches, the robust grid designed by generations of engineers and teams of talented and dedicated lineworkers allow Clark Public Utilities to maintain some of the shortest outage durations of any utility in the nation.
Beyond outages, dispatchers have a number of duties. They organize the daily jobs of the field crews — everything from service connections, maintenance projects and specific appointments. Because Clark Public Utilities is connected to a multistate transmission system, dispatchers also work regularly with larger regional utilities, like the Bonneville Power Administration, to keep the energy balanced and flowing properly.
“The thing is bad weather and car accidents don’t happen on a schedule. No matter what’s on your to-do list, you have to be ready to respond at all times,” Van Fleet said.
Dispatchers have a lot of tools to spot an outage in their 656-mile service area, but customer outage reports are among the best. A call to PowerLine at 360-992-8000 or using the outage reporting tool at ClarkPublicUtilities.com helps crews locate faults quickly — whether one home or 10,000 are affected.
Dispatchers call on a serviceman lineworker as the first responder to trouble. Often, that’s all it takes to get things right. But if the damage is too much for one person, dispatch sends out a larger and better-equipped line crew.
Life as a dispatcher isn’t a job for everybody. It requires specialized training and utility industry certifications. Plus, a person has to have the ability to stay cool and think quickly under pressure.
“Things can go from zero to a hundred fast. Suddenly an outage hits 30,000 people and our alarms are blaring, the phones ring off the hook, and it’s up to you to figure out the problem and come up with a plan as quickly as possible,” said Van Fleet. “It can be a stressful job, but it’s also very rewarding when you’re part of the team that gets the lights back on.”
Energy Adviser is produced by Clark Public Utilities and relies on the expertise of utility energy counselors and staff, who provide conservation and energy use information. To contact us call 360-992-3355, email ecod@clarkpud.com or visit www.clarkpublicutilities.com.
