Ken Bowes, a speaker at marcus evans Distribution Technology & Innovation Summit 2013, on the improvements that CL&P made on its outage management system. Interview with: Ken Bowes, Vice President, Energy Delivery Services, Connecticut Light & Power

1. How CL&P Transformed its Emergency Preparedness
very different. While some people were What technologies should utilities
out of power for six days, it was better consider for the future?
perceived overall. We actually received
rewards for our recovery efforts and Having more information about the
some positive comments from state status of customers and understanding
officials, who had been fairly critical of where to deploy resources is a huge
us after the first two storms. opportunity for power distribution
companies today, whether it is customer
Over that one-year period, what call center interfaces, interactive voice
efforts were made to improve your response technology or automated
emergency preparedness? metering infrastructure with a direct
connection to the outage management
We worked with the State of system.
Interview with: Ken Bowes, Vice Connecticut, each of the 149 towns we
President, Energy Delivery Services, serve, the American Red Cross and Once in place, the ability to turn that
Connecticut Light & Power other organizations, to improve our data into useful information is a key
performance around the communi- component. Without such technologies,
cations to our customers and major companies cannot put a work plan
“Communication during a storm is the stakeholders. together that would allow them to
most important part of power estimate when power will be back on.
restoration,” according to Ken Bowes, The first thing we did was name a Customers want to know when power
Vice President, Energy Delivery Senior Vice President of Emergency will be restored. That is the biggest
Services, Connecticut Light & Power Preparedness, as we recognized the need in our industry today. I always say
(CL&P). With thousands of customers need for such a role, for someone to put restoration is 51 percent communication
impacted by Tropical Storm Irene and in new processes, leverage existing and 49 percent actually putting the
Winter Storm Alfred within six weeks, technology, and to make sure the lights back on.
CL&P had to turn around the negative customer experience would be different
public reaction and perception of the the next time.
company.
We took our existing outage manage-
A speaker at the marcus evans ment system, our call center and
Customers
Distribution Technology & customer information systems, and built
Innovation Summit 2013, in Dallas, a bridge between them, so customers
Texas, April 22-23, Bowes outlines the would receive better information in
work that went into improving CL&P’s a timely manner.
outage management system, how it
paid off, and what utilities can learn
from them.
We developed various visualization
tools, to understand damage better, the
want to
know when
location of our crews, and be able to
What led up to CL&P’s decision respond faster and allocate resources
to improve its emergency more appropriately.
preparedness?
In 2011 Irene caused one of our largest
outages ever, impacting about half of
Our discussions with 149 towns led to a
list of mutually agreed upon priorities
for the towns, to deal with crises on a
power will
be restored
our customers. Six weeks later, Alfred community basis. We enhanced the
affected almost two-thirds of our town liaison process we had, placing a
customers. These back-to-back storms skilled individual in each town’s
set off a very negative public reaction emergency operations center, giving
and perception of our company. There them tools to track damages and crews
were many investigations, expert in real-time.
reports, and a long regulatory process
around new performance standards. We also enhanced our public
information office, to convey a clear,
When a third storm a year later affected concise and precise message to our
half of our customers, the outcome was stakeholders.

2. About the Distribution Technology & Innovation Summit 2013
The Energy Network - marcus
evans Summits group delivers This unique forum will take place at the Hotel Intercontinental, Dallas, Texas, April
peer-to-peer information on 22-23, 2013. Offering much more than any conference, exhibition or trade show,
strategic matters, professional this exclusive meeting will bring together esteemed industry thought leaders and
trends and breakthrough solution providers to a highly focused and interactive networking event. The
innovations. Summit includes presentations on using technology to improve emergency
preparedness, optimizing the use of smart grid technology as business drivers for
growth and innovation and the best practices for distribution management systems
implementation.
www.dti-summit.com
Please note that the Summit is a
closed business event and the
number of participants strictly
Contact
limited. Sarin Kouyoumdjian-Gurunlian, Press Manager, marcus evans, Summits
Division
Tel: + 357 22 849 313
Email: press@marcusevanscy.com
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About marcus evans Summits
marcus evans Summits are high level business forums for the world’s leading decision-makers to meet, learn and discuss
strategies and solutions. Held at exclusive locations around the world, these events provide attendees with a unique opportunity to
individually tailor their schedules of keynote presentations, think tanks, seminars and one-on-one business meetings.
For more information, please visit: www.marcusevans.com
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To view the web version of this interview, please click here: www.dti-summit.com/KenBowes