Power outage on Cape Cod? There's an Eversource office in New Bedford that's keeping track

NEW BEDFORD — At the Eversource facility in the New Bedford Business Park in the city's far North End, there's a high security room of the utmost importance. It's so secure, even the vast majority of the hundreds of Eversource employees who work at the site will never see inside, New Bedford Eversource Systems Operations Center Manager Erik Shott says.

"We minimize access to this room, so nobody has access who doesn't really need it," Shott said.

The mysterious, high-tech space upstairs at the former Polaroid building — resembling a surveillance operation out of a Hollywood spy caper — is one of three Eversource electrical grid operations centers in Massachusetts. Considering the power for every Eversource electric customer from Westport to the tip of Cape Cod and out to Martha's Vineyard, and as far north as Marshfield, rests in the hands of the chosen few who work there, it's easy to see why security is paramount. The New Bedford operations center operates the grid for 38 communities and 372,484 customers in total, according to Shott.

Once through the secure vestibule — making sure to close the first door before opening the next into the operations center — the fluorescent lighting of the halls and offices ceases and one steps into a darkened space, lit mostly by computer screens and equipment. There's also a television set to the Weather Channel.

"We're constantly looking at the weather," largely for storm planning purposes, watching for any indication that some extra staffing may be in order, Shott said.

Just another Tuesday

But it was a pretty normal Tuesday morning last week, in the midst of what Shott says tends to be a relatively calm time of year.

"If you look here, the only thing we have in our entire system right now is this one call," Shott said, pointing to a map indicator up on screen, in Plymouth. Based on what one of several monitors at his station showed him, Shott said he could see the issue being reported was an osprey nest located atop an Eversource-owned utility pole. Shott said ospreys being a protected species means this could be a simple fix, or a more complex one, based on the situation.

"If a nest is considered to be unoccupied, no eggs or chicks, we're actually allowed to just knock the nest off and remove it. If it's got eggs or chicks, then we can't. It requires some permitting; there's a bunch of things we need to do," Shott explained. "So we might be able to either move the nest over to a platform; they might be able to insulate the primaries, put some cover-up on the wires — that will insulate the wire so they don't conduct the nest and burn them out.

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"And you can see this little Eversource truck here, that's our guy Josh," Shott continued, pointing to a truck icon on-screen. "He's actually there now, so he's letting us know what he's doing and what he's seeing as he works over there through his iPad."

The worker responding to the osprey nest call is what's known as a "troubleman," Shott said of the field crews that spend their workdays covering certain territories, ready to address any issues that may arise. "They're our first responders for any trouble in the system."

Aside from the roaming troublemen, there are also line crews set aside for planned assignments and a number of other functions, Shott said.

What does Eversource do during an outage?

Using Eversource's robust computer system, Shott says staff are able to keep tabs on the grid's complex network of components like switches, poles, transformers, substations and more. This comes in handy when trying to determine the cause of an outage, Shott said. Once the source is determined, system operators will find the best way to de-energize whatever equipment field crews may have to come in contact with in their work, while minimizing the number of customers the shutdown affects.

"For example, if we get one call about an outage, we know it's likely an issue associated with service to their house," Shott said. "If we get another one in the same area, now we look at what the two have in common — are they on the same transformer?"

Based on this information, Shott says the computer system will simplify things by combining individual calls that appear to stem from the same issue into a single task to be addressed by crews in the field.

When there are too many outages and/or other issues for available crews to handle simultaneously, Shott said outages get prioritized according to how many customers each affects. The winter season, particularly when Nor'easters come into play, is one of the most common times for high call volumes, Shott said.

"Even in a moderate storm you might get 300 events on the screen," Shott said, noting the potential for an issue to be a public safety hazard is also taken into consideration in how calls are prioritized.

Two-in-one

When the Eversource Control Center in New Bedford came online in March 2020, staff who'd been working in Plymouth had been looking forward to working in a space built custom-suited to their needs, Shott said, but the start looked a little different than anyone expected.

"We relocated here from Plymouth and then COVID happened two weeks later," Shott said. "So we wore masks and kept social distance, but there was no option but to come here. These systems can't be operated from anywhere but right here."

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Other than that period, the facility at 50 Duchaine Blvd. has served multiple functions, housing the electrical control center for Southeastern Mass., homebase for field workers like line and gas crews, and a number of offices.

While remote communications are always available, the proximity carries some extra convenience when it comes to inter-departmental communications between control room and field staff, Shott said.

"It can be good to be able to just run down there and have a face-to-face with someone," Shott said.

Little room, big world

For locals considering electrical work or any adjacent fields, Shott said the control center should stand as a reminder of how diverse the work can be, beyond more commonly evoked examples. Despite coming from a wealth of experience as an electrician, starting with submarines in the Navy, Shott says the control room operation side was a late discovery for him.

"I didn't know there were a bunch of people sitting up in a dark room operating electric systems until I was 35 years old," Shott said. "Talk about a dream job — I didn't even know this existed."

But when the simple click of a mouse can activate miles of electricity in an instant, he also cautions that tasks like those the operations staff are responsible for are reserved for those who can bear the weight of having many lives in their hands.

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"When you're in the military ... it's usually all about the person next to you. Something bad might happen, but it won't be because I didn't do my part. That's the mentality we have here," Shott said. "There's people I've worked with for 15 years who I've never seen face to face ... but we're going to keep them safe."

This article originally appeared on Standard-Times: Behind the scenes at Eversource's New Bedford operations center