Public Power - January/February 2009 - (Page 41)

rive, we show them the paperwork, and they ask the owner to kindly go inside so we can get our work done.” Like Seattle City Light, Austin Energy uses science in order to trim appropriately. “Trees that are pruned tend to grow at a faster rate than trees that are not pruned,” said Henning. The utility arranged to have Davey Resource Group (a division of Davey that conducts resource consulting for utilities and other organizations) conduct a regrowth study on the 10 most common species in Austin’s service area to identify the regrowth rates for each of these. As a result, the utility can now base its clearance distances on the regrowth rates of the trees, rather than some arbitrary number. “We also work with the communities that are involved in replanting trees, to make sure they plant the right trees in the right places,” said Henning. “We don’t want them to plant forest giants underneath lines. They can plant them across the street, where there are no lines, and then plant lower-growing utilitycompatible species under the lines.” In addition, as part of its routine pruning process, the utility gives away 1,000 to 2,000 powerline-compatible trees a year. “These are good-sized, 10- to 15-gallon trees,” he said. The utility also funds the planting of another 4,000 trees a year through a program called NeighborWoods. As a result of its balanced approach to tree trimming, customers are happy and treerelated outages have gone down significantly. According to Henning, in terms of the utility’s overall reliability for July 2008, its system average www.APPAnet.org interruption duration index was 49.9 minutes, and its system average interruption frequency index (the number of times power to a customer was interrupted) was 0.7. Clark Public Utilities in Vancouver, Wash., follows tree trimming guidelines set by the International Society of Arboriculture, the Utility Arborist Association, and the National Arbor Day Foundation. “In the last 10 years, we have had a really good relationship with customers in terms of trimming the trees that we believe need to be trimmed,” said Mick Shutt, corporate communications manager. “One reason is that our approach is to spend time talking with customers and working with them in a friendly way, rather than saying, ‘Your tree is in our way, and we are going to cut it down.’” The utility is adamant that it is going to provide extremely reliable service, so its trimming program is sometimes aggressive. “We are in western Washington, which is damp, so things grow like crazy,” said Shutt. The utility trims on a threeyear cycle and does about 525 miles of line a year. “We are typically not going in and chopping something down that hasn’t been touched in 10 or 15 years,” he said. Perry Odom, electric utility forester for Tallahassee Electric Utility in Florida, said his utility is fortunate in that most of the trees on the regulated transmission lines are in more rural areas. “We don’t have to deal with many customers when it comes to transmission lines,” he said. Distribution-line trimming, though, involves day-to-day, face-to-face interaction with customers. “We notify every customer prior to trimming operations,” he said. “Some of them are not thrilled about that, though.” In 1997, the Tallahassee city commissioners created the 10person Citizen’s Tree Trimming Committee to advise the Electric Department on how to trim trees. “At first, I was a bit resistant,” said Odom. He has since changed his mind, though. The committee has disbanded, but its input helped the community and the electric department, Odom said. As a result of the committee’s work, the utility is now on an 18-month trim cycle. “We found that trimming the trees more often, but trimming less each time, resulted in less ‘sucker’ growth,” he said. “In fact, some of the trees didn’t even seem to ‘know’ they had been trimmed, in that there was such a small amount of sucker growth.” There is an additional benefit to the frequent trimming. The utility ends up trimming such a little amount these days that, when it notifies customers of trimming activities via door hangers, customers often call in to make special requests. “I have to call them back and say, we have already trimmed your trees.” ❚ We a re h e re t o h e l p ! TEA® has the experience to get you through the rough waters of the wholesale markets, and the complexity of the RTOs and ISOs. • Portfolio-wide perspective • Greater rewards and savings • Reduced wholesale energy risks • Shadow Settlement & Reconciliation 800.423.4800 ext. 11191 www.teainc.org Jacksonville • Seattle • Portland For Public Power, By Public Power The Nation's Leader in Public Power Energy Trading January-February 2009 41 http://www.teainc.org http://www.APPAnet.org

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Public Power - January/February 2009

Public Power - December 2008 Contents Perspective 10 Questions Heat or Eat? Achieving Excellence in Nuclear Operations Training Grand Ambitions for Wind Power Visions of Green Carbon Trading Across The Pond Reliability Green Energy Customer Service DEED Hometown Connections Parting Shot

Public Power - January/February 2009

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.