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People take electricity for granted — until the lights fail to come on in the morning or there’s no air conditioning on a scorching July afternoon.
But in one location in North Texas, uninterrupted power is never taken for granted.That’s Oncor Electric Delivery’s Transmission Grid Management Center, tucked away in a remote Metroplex location that company officials don’t want publicly divulged for security reasons. It’s the nerve center for the biggest electric transmission and distribution system in Texas — Oncor’s 14,000 miles of transmission lines, 102,000 miles of distribution lines, and 1,000 switching stations and substations. The system serves most of North Texas as well as large chunks of East, West and Central Texas.The center is staffed with certified, highly experienced controllers and supervisors, 24/7, year-round. A remote backup facility 30 miles away can take over if the center is disabled, said Michael Quinn, Oncor’s director of transmission system operations. Oncor recently allowed a Star-Telegram reporter and photographer to tour the center provided they not disclose the location.Video boardThe center’s most-striking feature is an 86-foot-long wall filled with video screens in a large control room that monitors everything from Oncor’s maze of power lines to weather reports warning of impending high winds, thunderstorms or lightning that could cause power outages in the company’s far-flung service territory, which Quinn dubs its "electrical footprint."The center even monitors national news networks. When 9-11 occurred, the Oncor center undertook "some very specific activities" to help ensure the safety and reliability of its transmission system, Quinn said without elaboration.The control-room video board "is not Jerry World-big, but it’s pretty big," Quinn joked in reference to the monstrous video board in Cowboys Stadium, commissioned by team owner Jerry Jones.The center monitors not only its bigger transmission lines — 345, 138 and 69 kilovolts — but also the smaller 25 and 13 kilovolt distribution lines typically serving residential neighborhoods."Every transmission line, every substation, everything we have electrically, these folks can see remotely and have it represented on their computer screens," Quinn said of the 24 controllers, who average 26 years’ experience with Oncor. The six shift supervisors average 28 years.Balancing actBecause electricity cannot be stored — and because usage levels vary greatly — providing power requires a continual balancing of supply and demand. That means that the center is constantly communicating with everyone from company field personnel to the staff of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages the power grid serving most of Texas.Pointing to one screen, Quinn said, "The green tells me that is a 345 kilovolt transmission line; the blue tells me it’s a 138 kilovolt" line. In the event of an outage somewhere, "we get both an audible alarm in here as well as a color change on our screens, so we know that something has changed." The center will then coordinate with field personnel to begin restoring power at the trouble spot.
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