“What problems can I solve today?”
Every moment energy is moving across America’s power grid.
Scott Sells makes sure it keeps flowing on EKPC’s piece of the grid—more than 2,800 miles of high-voltage transmission lines and 370 substations scattered across Central and Eastern Kentucky, bringing electricity to 1.1 million Kentuckians.
“Most people have no idea what goes on behind the scenes in order for them to have power for lights, refrigerators, air conditioning or even to access the Internet.”
Scott oversees EKPC’s Energy Control Center. It looks like something from a spy thriller—colorful TVs, computer monitors, a wall-size map with blinking lights. Operators watch power move across the grid. And they keep everything in balance, which is really important.
“We make sure power lines don’t get overloaded or we don’t have low voltage, because that can lead to outages.”
When outages occur, the Energy Control Center goes into action, coordinating the response by field crews and rerouting energy over the grid to restore power as quickly as possible.
And keeping people safe. “It’s our job to know what our field crews are doing, what’s around them and what’s going to impact them, so they can stay safe and go home to their families.”
Of course, the best outage is the one that never happens. Preparation is key.
Scott’s team is always learning, always looking for better ways to monitor the grid so they better understand what is happening and are prepared to prevent or respond to outages.
“We’re always asking ourselves, ‘What problems can I solve today?,’ to help make sure we’re doing the best we can to keep the lights on and keep everyone safe out in the field.’”
“I’ve had more opportunities at EKPC for growth, development and training, than I really had at a lot of other places.”
Scott says his team is a family. “We’re all really close. We’re there to help each other out. But we’re also there as a family to push each other and make each other better.”