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Whether at substations or in the field, electric utility transmission and distribution identification products such as safety signs, tags, and markers are critical to safe, efficient operation, maintenance, and repair. These brief warnings or instructions, comprised of letters, numbers, and symbols, must effectively convey key information to personnel. This is crucial not only to identify the location and type of equipment but also to protect utilities from the risk of personnel injury and litigation.

Unfortunately, traditional painted and laminated identification products frequently fade or delaminate when continually exposed to outdoor weather or punishing conditions. Solar UV, rain, snow, ice, and windblown debris as well as humidity and seasonal temperature fluctuations, inevitably degrade these identification products in a matter of years.

Over time, outdoor exposure can cause painted and laminated numbers and symbols to peel or fade. Even supposedly durable products designed for this purpose can become unreadable over ten years or more. Consequently, when safety warnings, asset location, or identifiers are needed most, technicians may make mistakes or waste time.

Given what is at stake, utilities are now increasingly shifting away from identification products that are marketed as long-lasting and durable but that have the potential to fade or peel, to those designed to withstand decades of abuse without becoming unreadable.

The Importance of Safety Signage
In the electrical utility industry, identification products are utilized just about everywhere.

In substations, signs often warn of arc flash and shock hazards, which OSHA states can result in “serious injury and even death.” Markers and tags typically specify when Lock Out Tag Out (LOTO) is necessary before the set-up, maintenance, service, or repair of energized equipment. Substation structure numbers are also necessary for rapid identification and servicing.

On large, high-voltage transmission towers crossing and direction signs signal trouble areas. Phase tags are also commonly used to indicate phase polarity on the towers, which is important because connecting the wrong phases can lead to dangerous explosions, serious injury, and extended downtime. Transmission towers also utilize aerial observation pole tags for rapid identification and better visibility to aircraft.

Smaller, lower-voltage distribution lines deliver power to homes and businesses on smaller poles. Pole identification products, such as tags and markers, are used to track and identify assets, data, and other vital information. Pole tags can also be used to identify the pole’s owner, maintenance history, and other valuable data.

Transformers, whether in the substation or on poles also indicate phase with tags. Similarly, markers and signage are used to indicate LOTO situations.

Not Good Enough
Too many in the industry believe that their current identification products are “good enough” even as legibility becomes compromised over the years. However, the paint will fade, and the laminate will peel on these products usually within five to ten years, requiring replacement.

Yet inspecting and replacing illegible products seldom – if ever – occurs on a comprehensive and timely basis because it can be a time-consuming, laborious process that is shortchanged in deference to higher priorities. Neglecting to do so, however, can lead to dangerous safety lapses as well as inefficient operation.

Designed for Lasting Safety
So, how can safety signage be designed and constructed to ensure readability after decades? The answer requires a shift in thinking. For applications with the longest lasting
requirements, impermanent paints and laminates should be avoided in favor of much more durable solutions. The signage should also be constructed using robust substrate or embossed characters that can take a beating from Mother Nature.

As an example, one type of sturdy signage system developed for the industry, called EVERLAST by Tech Products, Inc., a leader in the manufacture of industrial identification products for 75 years, is made of thick, high impact polyolefin plastic with copy and pictograms that are permanently embedded through the entire thickness of the substrate.

Tech Products, Inc., which serves electric and gas utilities, telecom and cable companies, oil and gas pipelines, and OEMs, offers five legacy brands and approximately 10,000 diverse products for these industries.

The polyolefin plastic is impervious to sun, wind, rain, humidity, salt water, and temperature variations as well as fumes and acid or alkali solutions. The characters can be seen from a distance and have sharp contrast. The signage can be cut, scratched, even shot through with little or no effect to the embedded characters, which helps to ensure readability decades later.

Third-party certification validates the durability of this approach. UL performed numerous durability tests on the signs in compliance with UL and ASTM standards. When the signs were subjected to the equivalent of 43 years of UV exposure, salt spray, vibration, abrasion, and temperature variation, the test results showed no change in color or legibility.

Another effective method of creating permanent signage is to utilize embossing.
Embossing creates raised characters in metal materials to improve legibility even when covered in dust, dirt, or even paint.

When lasting transmission and distribution markers are required, for example, deep embossed pole badge, pole inspection, and pole markers can be constructed of unpainted, embossed aluminum, brass, or stainless steel. The highly defined characters remain legible for the life of the pole.

Alternatively, on metal reflective pole tags, black characters can be screen printed on construction-grade yellow or silver reflective sheeting so that it is durable and UV stabilized. These tags can be used anywhere in areas that need to be seen with a flashlight.

For tight, confined spaces where close up reading is required, miniature markers with raised, 3D characters, called FastTags by Tech Products, Inc., can also be designed to remain legible even in low-light, oily, or dusty environments. The raised, 3D characters are hot stamped with high-quality UV-stable foil and are nonconductive and non-corroding, which is ideal for environments exposed to water such as utilities, offshore rigs, and sewer systems.

No replacing physical signage
Another reason these identification products need to last decades is they are sure to remain as valuable tools for utilities even as new technologies for asset management and maintenance are employed throughout the industry. Even with state-of-the-art technology like geographic information systems (GIS) and global positioning systems (GPS), electrical utilities will continue to require traditional physical identification products such as pole markers, for example.

Although pole tags are not mandated by regulations, many utilities choose to use them to assist with recovery efforts after a regional outage by still posting serialized GIS or GPS pole marking and numbering correspond to a pole’s geographic location using GIS/GPS coordinates. During emergencies like hurricanes, mutual aid situations often arise where utility trucks from different regions are called on for assistance. These trucks may not have access to GIS or GPS location information, making pole tags essential for proper identification and location guidance.

Although electric utilities have long utilized identification products in the field or in substations, the potential that critical information could become obscured or unreadable in a matter of years is no longer acceptable as a standard. Even when not strictly mandated, utilities that opt to use innovative products designed to last for many decades can significantly improve safety and uptime, while reducing potential liability and litigation risk.

For more information, call 1-800-221-1311; email info@techproducts.com; or visit www.techproducts.com.

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By Del Williams

Del Williams is a technical writer based in Torrance, California.

RALEIGH, NC – February 10, 2024 – Ndustrial, the energy intensity platform for industry, announced the launch of Nsight Fleet™, a comprehensive platform for managing industrial-scale, grid-interactive transport electrification infrastructure.

Electrification is growing rapidly across industrial fleets, with the global electric commercial vehicles market projected to grow more than 23% annually to $250B by 2030. Amid that rapid expansion, fleets will require far more charging that integrates with existing routes and delivers compelling financial benefits.

Nsight Fleet is the first to enable third-party logistics (3PL) sites to provide power for refrigerated trailers from multiple carriers and suppliers, accelerating the myriad benefits of electrification across supply chains. By switching from diesel-powered TRUs to eTRUs, refrigerated fleets can reduce their on-site emissions and fuel costs by 30%.

Nsight Fleet is built on the Nsight™ Energy Intensity Platform, which boasts one of the world’s largest deployments of an energy management system for industrial facilities. The addition of Nsight Fleet empowers companies to drive down energy intensity not only in their facilities but also in their supply chains.

“Refrigerated transport is an essential part of global supply chains, keeping everything from fresh produce to vital medical supplies safe and viable,” said Ndustrial VP of Supply Chain Electrification Manuel Aguirre. “With Ndustrial’s fleet electrification solutions, companies across the cold supply chain can meaningfully cut costs and emissions without incurring any up-front cost.”

The software package is designed to provide:

Yard management and optimization solutions
Real-time charger availability at each dock door or pedestal
Automated cost allocation and billing for third-party carriers
Real-time load management to avoid excessive demand charges
Refrigerated trailer audit records to maintain compliance and ensure quality
At every point in this journey, the software is designed to augment existing processes rather than replace them, delivering greater efficiency without a large solutions upgrade.

“We never want to make someone add another step,” said Ndustrial CEO Jason Massey. “So we started by understanding each existing process and built our solution to align to those.”

“Decarbonization remains a priority for manufacturers, and fleet electrification is a major opportunity for progress,” said Alex West, senior principal analyst for Industrial IoT and Sustainability at Omdia, a global market research firm. “Data is the basis of this transformation, so companies with experience integrating with a wide variety of industrial systems are well-positioned to bring holistic solutions to this growing market.”

In addition to providing software, Ndustrial can also design, install, and manage fleet electrification infrastructure. This includes an Energy-as-a-Service option which unlocks new revenue streams for facilities with zero up-front or ongoing costs.

Many projects, such as electric Transport Refrigeration Unit (eTRU) shore power, can also be completed without exceeding existing utility service capacity. Ndustrial is already deploying eTRU infrastructure for a major client in the U.S.

The announcement comes on the heels of Ndustrial’s investment from Southwire, one of North America’s largest wire and cable manufacturers, who has an interest in helping electrify heavy-duty transport. The Southwire partnership enables Ndustrial to deploy turnkey electrification infrastructure projects at highly competitive rates.

Seguin, Texas, is an hour northeast of San Antonio and has just over 30,000 residents. The City of Seguin serves the community with electric, water, and wastewater utilities. Smart grid solutions manager John Saldana manages geographic information system (GIS) maps for the electric and water utility departments.

“If anyone needs a map for internal, nonpublic information to support utility infrastructure projects—whether it’s electric, water, or sewer—that comes from us,” Saldana said. “We are the [go-between] between utilities and the city, so we support all of their technology needs beyond the traditional IT department.” 

Seguin is experiencing solid growth as it expands toward neighboring New Braunfels, and vice versa. As farmland between the cities is developed, demand for municipal utilities is rising.

Challenge
The city wanted to accurately map existing assets prior to development to avoid construction hits. Staff also wanted to map all new construction, ensuring that field crews could easily service legacy and new assets in the new grid in the future.

“The assets are all very close in proximity to each other, so it’s important that we have the best accuracy we can,” Saldana said.

To collect location data with high accuracy, Saldana deployed four Arrow Gold Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receivers from Esri partner Eos Positioning Systems. The Arrow Gold receiver connects to a base station that provides real-time kinematic (RTK) corrections, allowing crews to stream survey-grade locations into ArcGIS Field Maps using iPad devices.

A man stands outside wearing a yellow visibility vest and uses surveying equipment attached to a wooden poleCity of Seguin smart grid solutions manager John Saldana maps a temporary electric meter in the Hannah Heights neighborhood. To capture the data, he’s using ArcGIS Field Maps on an iPad device, connected to an Arrow Gold GNSS receiver receiving real-time kinematic (RTK) corrections from the city’s Arrow Gold base station. Assets like these can often be close to each other, creating a need for survey-grade accuracy in staff’s mobile maps.
“Data does not exist in a silo,” Saldana said. “It’s designed to be shared, expanded upon, integrated, and consumed upstream and downstream. We keep this in mind as we’re building and capturing something as simple as a point.” Today, the City of Seguin employs one full-time data collection employee.

Solution
At city meetings, stakeholders discuss how to tie existing utilities into the municipal system and whether these require upgrades to accommodate growth. Saldana’s team then maps the utilities. During construction, the as-built drawings are mapped in real-time. This dramatically improved them. 

“When we receive a big roll of paper drawings, those are not 100 percent accurate,” Saldana said. “By going out there and validating everything ourselves, we can be sure years later [that] when we receive a call, we know where our assets are.” 

Utility data analyst Felecia Helms performs QC on the incoming data before publishing it to an enterprise GIS. Helms leads the city’s ArcGIS Utility Network migration. Previously, Saldana created Utility Network prototypes. Helms now inputs the city’s electric assets, ensures that data meets production-level standards, and migrates it to the production utility network. 

“We’re ensuring the data is correct,” Helms said. “Then we can do a full connection for our utility network to move to the next phase.”

Results
Once the migration is complete, ArcGIS Utility Network will be used to manage the entire electric system and feed the outage management system (OMS) with valuable data for proper intervention. After that, Helms will tackle the Utility Network migration for water.

Map of a power distribution substation in blue and white with asset features labeled in red and blueSeen here is the Seguin substation; collecting location data about nearby electrical assets helps Saldana and Helms identify assets that are missing on the map.
Ultimately, Saldana says, the city’s success lies in its extremely accurate GIS data powering utility services. The City of Seguin’s enterprise GIS acts as the system of record for countless downstream systems including the OMS and the advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), and billing systems.

“I’m passionate about traversing all these data integrations and making sure it’s accurate,” Saldana said. “People have to recognize that good asset management starts with collecting good data as step one.”

Partner
Eos Positioning Systems is the Canadian designer and manufacturer of premier, high-accuracy GNSS receivers for the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) market. Eos GNSS receivers, which include the Skadi Series and Arrow Series, provide real-time submeter-, subfoot-, and centimeter-level location accuracy into any device or app. All Eos GNSS receivers are completely device agnostic and support iOS, Android, and Windows devices. Eos also offers advanced mapping solutions—tilt compensation, underground utility mapping, and much more.
 

Read the full white paper here.
 

Managing customer payments is becoming increasingly complex in the rapidly evolving Energy and Utility (E&U) sector. Economic uncertainties, coupled with higher unemployment rates, have resulted in escalating customer defaults. According to the National Energy Assistance Directors Association (NEADA), one in six US households is behind on their energy bills. By December 2023, the national arrears reached a record USD 20.3 Billion, up from USD 17.7 Billion earlier in the year. In the UK, regulatory bodies are taking proactive steps, including raising the energy price cap to safeguard suppliers from financial collapse.
 

E&U providers are additionally challenged by stringent consumer protection regulations designed to minimize environmental impact, protect vulnerable customers and ensure safety compliance. These challenges are compounded by certain customer segments exploiting loopholes in E&U processes, leading to increased defaults and revenue losses.
 

In this constrained environment, how can E&U companies mitigate bad debt write-offs? This paper outlines a three-pillared framework leverages predictive analytics, Generative AI (Gen AI), speech analytics and income-qualified customer strategies to enhance collections, minimize bad debts and foster customer loyalty.