By Craig Cox, South Central PPD general manager

    People count on electricity every day to make our lives easier. The convenience of electricity over other forms of energy is helping drive the demand for more power generation in Nebraska and nationwide. As more of our daily activities revolve around the availability of electricity, it’s understandable that we can feel a sense of panic and helplessness when we lose it.
    One of the core values of public power is the reliability of the electric service we provide to our customers. Nebraska consistently ranks among the top states for electric service reliability. While power outages can never be entirely avoided, the state’s public power model is uniquely positioned to manage them more effectively than many other providers.
    Unlike investor-owned utilities, public power districts are non-profit entities. Every dollar made over the cost of providing service is invested back into the electric system. More money spent on preventative maintenance and good construction practices results in fewer power outages over time. When outages do occur, we often have alternate feeds and other ways to re-route power while repairs are being made, which can greatly reduce outage time.
    Another key tool in maintaining reliability is the Mutual Aid Agreements between public power districts. In extreme weather events, a local power supplier can quickly become overwhelmed with damage to poles and conductors. A small crew of linemen might need weeks to restore power when there is widespread damage. Fortunately, other public power districts come to the rescue in these situations to help restore power as quickly and safely as possible for the district requesting help. The Nebraska Rural Electric Association coordinates these efforts.
    Since extreme weather is the cause of most major power outages, you may wonder why we don’t bury all the power lines. If we were starting over today with a brand-new power system, it might be feasible to do so at the distribution level. Underground cables that could operate reliably at high voltage weren’t available in the 1930s and 1940s when our electric systems were first built. Replacing our entire overhead line system with underground lines would be cost prohibitive. Maximizing reliability while providing the lowest possible rates is a balancing act, and keeping electricity affordable is as important as keeping it reliable.
    In the larger picture, the reliability of electric service also depends heavily on our generating plants and regional transmission grid. The biggest challenge to reliability at the generation and transmission level is the enormous amount of intermittent wind generation now operating in our region. There are times when demand for power is high and wind generation is almost nothing, and there are times when wind can supply most of the regional power demand. We rely on dispatchable generation resources to cover our power needs when the wind isn’t blowing. The greatest challenge to electric reliability in the future may be keeping these dispatchable coal, gas, and nuclear plants operating in a political environment that wants to shut them down, and in the ability to add additional plants to meet the exploding demand for power in Nebraska and the rest of the nation.