Littleton Electric Light & Water Assistant GM Details Experience Serving as Technical Advisor for CUC

 

 

Welcome to the latest episode of Public Power Now. I'm Paul Ciampoli, APPA's News Director.

 

Our guest on this episode is Dave Ketchen, Assistant General Manager at Littleton Electric Light and Water Department in Massachusetts.

 

Dave, thanks for joining us.

 

 

Thanks, Paul. I'm excited to be here.

 

 

So Dave, just to get our conversation started, I would imagine probably most listeners who are APPA members are aware of Littleton, but for those who may not be aware of the utility, could you provide an overview of it?

 

 

We're located in central Massachusetts. We have electric water and wastewater utilities.
We have about 8,000 electric customers, about 4,000 water customers, and only 100 wastewater customers.

 

We just stood up the wastewater system, so that's relatively new to us. But we serve the towns of Littleton and Boxborough, Massachusetts. We're overseen by an elected board of commissioners.

 

And the wastewater system, you said you just stood it up, what was the specific timing on that when that was stood up?

 

Dave Ketchen

 

Yeah, so that's been discussed in town for a long time. We never had a municipal or commercially available wastewater system.

 

We had a small system that just connected a few town buildings, like town hall, fire department, some of the school buildings, things like that. 

 

But there was a group in town here that got together a few years ago and wanted to put a plan for it to revitalize our town common.

 

And one of the key factors to doing that was bringing sewage to the properties along our common in Littleton, so we put that plan in place.

 

We probably just started commercially flowing about a year ago, a little less than a year ago.
So it's still relatively new to us and we're still kind of figuring things out as we go, but it's definitely going to be a great thing for our town.

 

 

So just switching topics, one of the reasons why I wanted to talk to you for the podcast is you're serving as a technical advisor for the Commonwealth Utilities Corporation.

 

Earlier this year, you served as that advisor for the Commonwealth Utilities Corporation, supporting the power restoration efforts across the Northern Mariana Islands after Super Typhoon Sinlaku, I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly, in April of this year caused widespread devastation.

 

So could you detail how you were chosen to serve as a technical advisor?

 

 

So it happened very fast. The storm hit the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam, which is located in the Pacific just south of Japan.

 

So this typhoon hits maybe mid-April and the utility that operates over there, Commonwealth Utilities Commission, after they sort of assessed some of the damage initially and determined how bad things were, they decided that they needed some mutual aid help.

 

So they reached out to the APPA to do so as a member of APPA and the mutual aid program through the APPA.

 

And APPA sent some notices out to some different West Coast utilities looking for a technical advisor to go over and help sort of organize and orchestrate the restoration process and they weren't able to find a lot of people that were willing to go because basically the utility CUC wanted someone there for an extended period of time and there really wasn't they weren't they weren't having any luck finding finding that person right off the bat.

 

So they widened the search and sent out a mutual aid request to the whole APPA program and I was selected through that.

 

I was actually sitting next to my general manager, Nick Lawler, who is a part of the APPA mutual aid working group.

 

And we were sitting probably 15 minutes before one of our board meetings and the request came in and he was showing it to me and asking if I wanted to go. 

 

And not even really thinking about it, I was like, I'll throw my hat in the ring and so Nick responded that I was willing to go.

 

And before the board meeting was even over, things were in motion and I had been set up with contact information for CUC and started to sort of coordinate the process to getting me over there.

 

 

Once you were on board in that role, could you talk about the specific activities you engaged in while serving as a technical advisor?

 

 

The initial request -- they sent out a sort of job description of a technical advisor of what they expect in that position. And it was a lot of like high-end transmission and distribution oversight and overseeing and leading the restoration process.

 

So I've done that for our New England group here through our Northeast Public Power Association on certain events, so I feel pretty comfortable in that spot.

 

And that's with having my own team of people that I'm comfortable with and sort of know what to expect around me.

 

So this was a little out of my comfort zone where you're going into someone else's utility and you don't really know exactly what to expect and exactly what role you're going to play.

 

The utility CUC had utilized an APPA mutual aid technical advisor one time in the past back in 2018, this foreman from Sacramento, from SMUD, named Michael Munn.

 

And I actually talked to him before I deployed to Saipan and sort of picked his brain on what he did and when he was there, he was really in charge of leading the line crews almost acting as like a general line foreman for the line crews and ensuring that restoration was done in a safe manner in a coordinated manner and things ran smoothly from that standpoint.

 

So that's sort of what I was expecting when I got there.

 

Now I have an engineering background, so that's a little out of my wheelhouse, but as far as coordination and understanding the challenges, that's right up my alley.

 

But once I got to Saipan, that scope and that role of what I was expecting all sort of flipped.
I flew in, the flight took a few days from Boston. I ended up going through Guam and then over to Saipan over the course of two days.

 

And once I arrived in Saipan off the short 45 minute flight from Guam, I was picked up by the executive director from Commonwealth Utilities Commission and he further explained my role and basically said that they needed help at the executive level with the electric restoration decision making.

 

He explained to me that he had a water treatment background and just needed some assistance working with FEMA who had been deployed there as well to help with the efforts and FEMA's partner DOE.

 

So I worked alongside the high level executives of CUC to make some high stakes decisions with FEMA and DOE regarding restoration decision strategy, everything like that.

 

And then I also worked with the engineering and operations team doing some damage assessment and just trying to help wherever I could on a day-to-day basis.

 

 

As I was preparing for this interview, one of the things that struck me is the LinkedIn post that you made detailing your experience, very in-depth, covered a lot of ground, and it helped me out in terms of preparing for this interview.

 

But in that post, you note that it gave you a first-hand look at the unique operational and logistical challenges of running a utility system on a remote island.

 

So can you tell our listeners, provide additional details in terms of these challenges?

 

Dave Ketchen

 

It's like trying to do something with your hands tied behind your back.

 

So they, the Northern Mariana Islands -- they have multiple islands, but they have three islands that have power on them.

 

So Saipan, Tinian, and Rota. So Saipan and Tinian were pretty much completely devastated when it comes to the power grid.

 

Rota had some damage, but it was really sort of buttoned up and all back up and running by the time I got there, so over the course of two weeks. 

 

So just the limited resources of the island just make it so difficult.

 

Like when I've gone on mutual aid restoration efforts in the past state of Florida, we're traveling down with sometimes upwards of 50 to 60 people with us just from New England going to Florida.

 

And then we get there and you're one of a few 100 crews in this small area trying to restore, say, Tallahassee or Orlando, something like that, where Saipan doesn't have that. They only have the resources that are available immediately to them on the island.

 

And then any other resources that come in have to be coordinated and financially vetted and everything has to pass through all these different checks and balances before it even becomes an option.

 

So getting there, Saipan has about 45,000 people on the island. The day I got there, they actually, they livened up the first part. They were completely out of power for the first two weeks.

 

They livened up the first part of one of their distribution circuits.

 

Didn't really pick up many customers, but that was a pretty big milestone for them.

 

They have about 10 bucket trucks just on those three islands. So that's it. So it's just very limited resources. 

 

So they had to, one, ask for help from Guam, which was key. So they have a good relationship, obviously, with the surrounding islands, including Guam, which has Guam Power Authority.
So the general manager from Guam was a great guy too, John Benavente, and he would offer as many resources as he could to send over to Saipan, and they would barge over bucket trucks, digger trucks, materials, and then fly over their alignment as well.

 

So I think Guam had about 50 or 60 people on Saipan as well, just helping with restoration.
So just those are the sorts of things that the challenges that they're facing from that standpoint.

 

 

Now, one follow-up question occurred to me as it relates to this topic.

 

You pointed out that this required a time commitment before you could kind of move forward with it.
But I mean, I guess putting that aside, if another public power utility official had a similar opportunity, I'd imagine you would recommend that person at least seriously consider it.

 

 

Oh, absolutely. This was a once in a lifetime experience.

 

I'm so thankful that, you know, I have a general manager that is willing to understand the professional development side of this opportunity, our board, our town, everyone was so open to the idea and that just made it that much more intriguing to go to.

 

My wife, by the time I told her about it, she was great, but we have a three-year-old and a one-year-old at home.

 

And so she was just obviously just saying, oh, go, chase your dreams and help these people out as best as you can and I'll hold the fort down at home.

 

So by the time I got home, I was just so thankful for her.

 

But yeah, the entire experience was really once in a lifetime.

 

And like I said, every single day brought a new challenge.

 

Part of the last question that you asked me with the different challenges of just being an island.

 

So also the challenges of being a remote island, U.S. territory, and trying to wrap your head around how much damage you have and how much of a financial hit that's going to be to restore everything.

 

And then trying to work with FEMA to make them understand that these are the resources we need. And then from FEMA's side, they have the DOE to sort of keep their checks and balances in line to ensure like everything is being completed in a manner that they would expect and hope.

 

So there were ideas getting thrown out on how to bring in generators for the island of Tinian and now that was completely vetted.

 

So I would fly over in a little six-seater plane to Tinian with CUC, FEMA, DOE to evaluate their power plant -- got completely devastated, but the roof was completely ripped off every single day that I was there.

 

It rained at least for an hour, a couple hours, and rain would just pour down on the generators there and that building was completely devastated and almost unfixable.

 

So these people on Tinian were without power the entire time I was there.

 

They finally got it a few days after I left, which was more than a month after the storm had passed.
But working with FEMA, DOE, US Army Corps of Engineers to figure out a temporary solution for those situations was really rewarding.

 

 

And just before we move on to the other topics, I just wanted to mention for our listeners that Super Typhoon Bavi hit the Northern Mariana Islands this past summer, and the CEC has made significant progress with power restoration efforts since that time.

 

So Dave, just switching topics here, I want to talk about a recloser project that the utility has been working on and focused on.

 

And as you know, the utility previously received a US Department of Energy grant to upgrade six reclosers within its distribution system to implement new control technology.

 

The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center was awarded the grant and then dispersed the funds through grant process to Massachusetts utilities.

 

So against that backdrop, can you offer an overview of this project, including when it's expected to be completed?

 

 

So this was a great project.

 

We'd been applying for this DOE grant in different forms and fashions over the past few years.
And finally, MassCEC was able to help us land the plane.

 

So this grant is going to help us replace about six reclosers in our system. We've had a few reclosers fail over the past few years.

 

So the basis of this grant is to improve our reliability and harden our system. So we're upgrading some reclosers and then we're adding a few reclosers to our system with newer technology, with fault location, isolation, in service restoration technology....and we're going to utilize that technology to automatically switch around our system during outages strategically.

 

So if a section goes down in our system, we're going to have this system set up so within a minute, things switch around and safely energize what can be energized and isolate the damaged area.
So that's something we're really excited about.

 

And that is supposed to be fully installed and operating by the end of 2027.

 

 

And with respect to upgrading reclosers, this is not an area that I normally write about in terms of our newsletter or cover in terms of our podcast.

 

I'm just curious, how unique is it to upgrade reclosers? I mean, perhaps like, you know, from a national perspective.

 

 

I mean, you don't do it often. You hope the reclosers you install have a life of 15, 20 years.

 

But there's been significant, since the last time we installed new reclosers, like I said, there's been significant technology advances. 

 

And we've had some of our controls bail randomly and open off reclosers on a blue sky sunny day.
So it's been something that has been back of mind for us and we're really excited to get these new ones installed and up and running.

 

 

And for my last question and topic, I want to talk to you about cybersecurity.

 

And as I was preparing for this interview, some news broke in terms of Littleton Electric Light and water departments being one of the public power utilities that received an APPA cybersecurity accelerator program designation and that was announced this month in September.

 

So could you talk about the ways in which utility has bolstered cybersecurity?

 

 

Yeah, so as I'm sure most people are aware, we were impacted by Volt Typhoon about two years ago now.

 

So that was a nation state actor from China came onto our network through a firewall vulnerability and sort of laid back in the weeds and did this living off the land technique.

 

And we discovered this from the FBI and our federal partners, Homeland Security, and they sort of helped us mitigate the issues and clean up our network.

 

And in that process, we basically completely re-architectured our network and IT infrastructure.

 

So basically now things are a lot more segmented among our users.

 

We have multiple lines of firewall security at different locations in our system.

 

Our operational technology and our SCADA systems are even more segmented than they previously were, utilizing different techniques and things like that.

 

So we've really put a focus on making physical and architectural changes to our system, as well as we're still continuing to train our employees on different fishing things and any IT education that we can push along helps in that department as well.

 

 

Dave, thanks again for taking time to speak with us. I know we covered a lot of varied topics on this episode.

 

So I wanted to thank you again for taking the time to speak with us.

 

 

Yeah, Paul, thanks.

 

Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.

 

And as with all our guests, you have an open invitation to return at some point in the future.

 

 

Sounds good to me. Thank you, Paul.

 

Thanks for listening to this episode of Public Power Now, which is produced by Julio Guerrero, graphic and digital designer at APPA.

 

I'm Paul Ciampoli, and we'll be back with more from the world of public power next week.