Meet the unsung heroes of the electricity grid | Behind the scenes with overhead lineworkers

Speaker A: Over the next 10 years, by 2035, the demand is going to go up by 50%. By 2050, it's going to double. Managing that is going to be really, it's going to be a big task.

Speaker B: We do provide a vital role and there's a pride in that setting. Poles, running wire, everything from underground work. We do it all.

Speaker C: Welcome to the clean Energy revolution. I'm Carolyn Cassan, associate dean at New York University.

Speaker D: And I'm Laura Young, also known as Less Waste. Laura. When you turn on your lights or boil your kettle or do anything with electricity, it travels from generators like wind farms or solar farms along overhead lines. To provide your home with power, it's important that the electricity we need is available 24,7. We need to be able to charge our phone or keep our home heated and, and also run things like hospitals, schools and transport systems. So those lines that keep our lights on have to be able to cope with wild weather, storms and flooding. Line workers help to keep the electricity flowing safely and reliably. They are the unsung heroes who scale the pylons to inspect and maintain the network of overhead lines. Today we'll be finding out, uh, how they do it. We'll see how inspections are done, using drones and robots to go where humans can't. We'll hear about how the lines are made to withstand weather conditions and how line working teams manage the network of cables. The UK's electricity transmission network has 7,000km of overhead lines and 300 substations. It's the infrastructure that transmits electricity over the country and it's been doing it for 100 years. Tom Norris is an overhead lines training instructor at, uh, National Grid. Tom, welcome to the Clean Energy Revolution podcast.

Speaker A: Hi, thanks for having me.

Speaker D: No, it's great to have you. And we are talking about these lines that people will have seen around the country above our heads, and I would love to know how they actually work. So correct me if I'm wrong. I think I've got it. Electricity is transmitted along these cables above us and they come from power stations or things like wind farms, and they go across the country to regional substations, which is where it's converted into a lower voltage so that we can have these power lines on our streets and in our homes so that when we plug stuff in, it works. Am I right?

Speaker A: That is pretty much spot on. Yeah. So from, from whatever generation source it may be, like you said, then we step it up to transmit across our transmission lines and then around the distribution network and into our homes. Eventually, yeah. So, yeah, spot on.

Speaker D: And so, Tom, thinking about this network, all these different spaces and places, can you tell us a little bit about the control center? Because that's actually where everything is managed.

Speaker A: Yeah. So they manage load on the system. So we see the demand that we need on the line, they'll swap it around each circuit, making sure we've got enough power where we need it. They also control, uh, the outages that they give to us. So for when we need to work on the lines, they need to be switched off. An SAP or senior authorized person in overhead lines get in touch with control. They then switch the circuit out, isolate it so that it's safe for us to work on.

Speaker D: And I feel when we have stormy weather, particularly here in the uk, that sort of tree falling on a line is probably one of the images that you might see on the TV or in the newspaper. And storms are inevitable. And I guess you could argue that climate change is meaning we have more kind of frequent and intense storms. How do you plan for these? Can you plan for these, particularly thinking about line workers and fixing these outages?

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, the best way we plan for it is just keeping the assets in the best possible, uh, condition that they can be in. Uh, so we're constantly assessing the age of the lines and what condition stuff's in. But locally in the teams, we'll have, um, checks that we've got to do, make sure vehicles are, uh, fully fueled up, ready for the response if we do get called out to such things as trees coming down on the line or even the conductors coming to the floor if lining hits the lines.

Speaker D: And if we do have a storm and you do need to activate that response, what does that look like? What are some of the approaches that you take for the various different risks that we see happening to the infrastructure,

Speaker A: the framework, first steps always to make it safe. Ah, so we had a lightning strike hit some insulators and it actually parted the insulators over the M62 a number of years back. So we had to get out there. Obviously, the motorway was closed. First response was how we're going to make it safe. And then after that it's how we would fix it. So with our maintenance procedures, take the next steps from there.

Speaker D: And I think that's, you know, critical understanding that safety is key. And you would, I guess I feel we need to say you should. No one should ever go near any sort of lines that are down except professionals. I feel that's needed to be said.

Speaker A: Yeah, 100% back to the control center, things come up straight away. If there's a fault on the line, the response is quite quick. There's people on call 24 7, so the response time is really quick.

Speaker D: That's brilliant. And, um, I guess in a storm, we know that there is that activated response that's urgent and immediate. But thinking about a normal week, what does a typical week look like for you and your team?

Speaker A: Yeah, so summer and winter look slightly different. Typically we go to the base centre that the 12 teams are located at. They'll get issued a safety document, which means they're safe to work on that line. Forget any gear out they need for the job and then throughout the week they'll then work on that job. Whether it be a week's job, two weeks, three, four, that's all determined by the outage length and the work that needs to.

Speaker D: And thinking about your job, what is the favourite thing that you get to do when it comes to working on these lines?

Speaker A: I think the most enjoyable for me is space room. So people often, they look up, you don't really see what's there. You see a pylon, you see some conductors between, but the conductors are always strung in what we call bundles. So there'll be two or, uh, three or four conductors going along together. To make sure that the conductors don't clash together, we put in these spaces. So start at one tower, uh, we'll land a conducted trolley. The battery powered now used to be petrol. Before that you just pulled yourself along, you'd land the trolley and then you traverse the spans between the towers, knocking out the old spaces. Uh, so you're hitting them off, traverse through the span and then it could be 3, 4, 5 span that you'll do and then you'll stop for the day and the next day you back up again and then the new spaces go down. We use ropes and winches from vehicles. New spaces come up here and potter along on your own in a conducting trolley.

Speaker D: That sounds very cool. And I bet you get some good, good views, good scenery of some beautiful places around you.

Speaker A: Yeah, very good.

Speaker D: But thinking about the. Obviously this is huge, the network, massive. So there must be bits that you have to do by hand, like what you're talking about on the trolleys. But there also must be some automation in terms of inspecting the grid. I know you also mentioned that you get alerts and things when stuff goes wrong. But thinking about automation and inspecting the grid, how do you balance that when it comes to manual versus automated?

Speaker A: Uh, well, at the moment, every tower is Visited every year, do a yearly foot patrol. Every tower, we've got to warp the lines, so visually inspect them with binoculars from the floor going forwards. The drone teams that we've got now in National Grid, they're flown by pilots as well. Uh, so we did have it recently. They're allowed now to fly the drones out of line of sight. So it is getting better. The advances in technology is getting better. Uh, we've also got helicopter team who fly the lines. It's all just to check the condition of what we've got out there.

Speaker D: And when you're doing those inspections, what are you looking for? Is it just general wear and tear? Is it people flinging pairs of shoes on lines? I feel that was something I saw growing up. You know, what are you looking for when you're doing these inspections?

Speaker A: So, yeah, it's anything from that. So it's, it's the condition of the actual assets. If there's been any vandalism around the tower, we do have a duty of care to the public to keep them off the tower. So you've probably seen at the base of pylons, there's, uh, barbed wire around and there's a lot of signs saying, we are the manager of the, of the asset and there's an emergency number to ring. So we've just got to check the condition of all those things and then basically it's the, it's the condition here and any faults that we can, we can see.

Speaker D: You know, it's great to hear about the efficiencies involved in these inspections and things like drones being able to save a lot of time, um, and also probably a bit of carbon emissions as well. If you don't have to drive as far, you know, you can do some of this automation. But thinking about line workers, your role in particular, you know, what is exciting about the future of your job?

Speaker A: It's definitely, um, the great grid upgrade that's, that's happening because we need to match the demand over the next 10 years. By 2035, the demand is going to go up by 50%. Uh, and again by 2050, it's going to double the demand on the electrical system. So managing that is going to be really, it's going to be a big task. We're recruiting a lot at the moment. Of course, we're moving to cleaner energy sources as well. So these connections to Europe, they're going to be going to be massive. Uh, as we've spoke about the innovation with the drones, I think it's, it's, it's going to be really important for them if they can reduce the time we spend walking through the lines and spend more time working on the assets. I think it's, it's only um, going to benefit the company. Uh, and then in the next two weeks we've actually got a Space Ring robot and as today enjoy Space Ring, but we've got a robot that's coming over from uh, America and that can go along and fit these spaces. So that'll be interesting to see as well. To all the new advances in technology.

Speaker D: And this is something that's needed, isn't it? Because the great grid upgrade, that's because we're expecting to need a lot more capacity, isn't it? On the grid?

Speaker A: Yep, that's correct.

Speaker D: And thinking about if I wanted to become a line worker, I feel you'd probably have to be okay with some heights, probably okay with being outdoors, good at using some binoculars. But what would be the steps to train me up if I was wanting to do this job?

Speaker A: Yes, we're currently um, working. We're currently taking on a lot more apprentices so the most we've had in years. We had a group start in September, another one in January and uh, we're taking on applicants again for September. So you'd apply online and then you come down here to ECRIN and uh, you assessed over like five different assessments including an interview. Uh, and they're all to balance the confidence you've got at height, climbing the towers, uh, understanding engineering drawings and stuff like that. Technical works, also behavior in the environment because it's obviously safety critical. So it's a three year program. It balances between actual work in the classroom. Down at ICAM we've got three mock up towers that are not connected to any sort of circuits so they're safe for us to work on. So we can practice any uh, procedures and stuff here. And then they'll go off into the teams and um, they'll bring back evidence of them working and then after three years. Yeah, fully, fully qualified lines worker.

Speaker D: Oh, I think that sounds fantastic and it's just great to hear a little bit more from you top. Literally on the ground about. Well, and sometimes in the air about what happens in terms of our infrastructure, particularly as we are embarking on this great grid upgrade. What does that actually look like? What are the things that we have to do to keep up with the capacity, demand of energy, but also ensuring first and foremost safety for people around the country. So Tom, thank you so much for being on this podcast. Thank you and sharing a bit more about the work that you do.

Speaker C: So that's the story in the uk, but what about here in the us? I also want to shine the spotlight on, um, the unsung heroes of the electricity network, the line workers. These are the people who brave storms, navigate emergencies and ensure that electricity flows reliably and safely to our homes and businesses. I'm delighted to welcome lineworker Amy Brose to the the podcast.

Speaker B: Thank you, Carolyn. So, so nice to be here.

Speaker C: Amy's career is, I'm sure she won't mind me saying, extraordinary. She's one of the only two female electric line workers with the National Grid in New York State, a testament to her pioneering spirit in what has traditionally been a male dominated field. Amy is a one person crew. That means she's often the first on the scene during emergencies like power outages or fires, bringing her unique expertise to crit high pressure situations. Coming up, we'll discuss the essential role of line workers, explore the importance of team dynamics and safety, and hear Amy's perspective on responding to storms and severe weather. What does it mean to be a line worker? And how does it feel to be such a critical, yet often overlooked part of the energy network? Amy, welcome to the show.

Speaker B: It's a pleasure. I'm looking forward to talking about a lot of these things.

Speaker C: So one of the things I think that's really interesting and there was a really a wonderful piece, a write up about you that you represent 0.25% as um, a female National Grid line worker in New York State and that nationally 17% of line workers are female.

Speaker B: It's one thing that I kind of want to make a little bit of my mission as I, I've been at national grid for 33 years and my journey through with other women here, it becomes less and less. There's less and less women as I go and no one to kind of fill my shoes when I leave. I kind of look back, I wish I had somebody to mentor through this. Uh, the way I was isn't. And I don't know if that's a lack of interest in the trades coming through out of high school. If it's not pushed as much for, for women as much as it is for men. Or maybe they're just not seeing enough of us in the field. When you see someone doing it, you think, oh, I could do that too. If she looks like me, I could do that. Look at her, you know, like it gives you a feeling of that. And I had, I really just had one other That I knew coming through. But um, I think if we were more seen and I feel a little bit like I was trying not to be seen while I was learning because I was afraid to draw too much attention to myself or she thinks she's all that and now there's a little bit of a freedom given my, I have less to be worried about, you know, at this stage of the game. You know, I'm more confident in my skills.

Speaker C: Well, you are also known as a one woman crew, right? That is, I want to sort of talk about that. What does that mean? But if we could just kind of maybe quickly go back to 1991, like what, what was your motivation for joining National Grid and you know, kind of choosing that area of work in terms of being a line worker.

Speaker B: Well, I think back then I didn't even know what a, uh, line mechanic was, to be honest with you. Back then it was Niagara Mohawk, it uh, wasn't National Grid. And um, I saw opportunities to do a variety of things. I started as a, as a meter reader, but they offered a lot of opportunities for different, I mean there's a million different things you could do in the electric utility. And I actually thought I wanted to go into planning and one of the programs that they had as I was reading meters was to continue going to school after I was a meter, uh, reader. I went and I took a job where I was like flagging for the line department, flagging in the road traffic control and you know, just kind of watching them and how everybody interacted and what was going on and you know, how they worked as a team and all the excitement kind of going on and I think I could do that. You know, those guys and they look like they were really, they enjoyed what they were doing. I just thought I'd take a chance.

Speaker C: Well, we're very glad you took a chance. Can you. I want to, I want to go back to the one person crew. Right. You deal with, of course, course a lot of emergency response calls. Right. Uh, extreme weather, a fire as a one person crew. Give us a, give us a sort of a sense of what that would look like in terms of what you would have to do.

Speaker B: The most important is emergency response after the initial part of making the scene safe. Then I work with our regional control to get the power back on for the surrounding area as quickly as possible. So you want to eliminate the danger right where the car hit, uh, the pole, but you want to get everyone's power back on all around the surrounding areas as quick as possible. So there's um, you know, some moves to go out and open up the lines in certain areas and have the power redirected so that people can continue to go on about their day safely. You know, so that's just like with a motor vehicle accident, but it could be uh, a fire scene, anything like that. But that's pretty typical in the, it happens more often than we would like to. The rest of the time I'm a troubleshooter. So when people have flickering lights, maybe they have part power at their house, it's my job to go and figure out why. If it's a system problem or a problem within their home. Issues with power can cause all sorts of hardship for businesses. Some of their refrigeration burns up or some of their equipment burns up because they don't have something's gone wrong with their power. It can really, really cause some damage. So that's important to get to the bottom of that as quick as possible. Give them good advice uh, as to how to move forward.

Speaker C: Are ah, you seeing kind of an uptick in the demand for your services when it comes to storm response and EM response since 1991 more need because of what we are seeing in terms of more extreme weather events.

Speaker B: Geez, we, we do seem to have had, you know, I don't, I can't speak about the weather but I, I know that I've been very busy the last few years with the storm response but I think also people are so reliant on us for power, for the livelihood. It's a big, it just seems to be m more urgency to getting the power back on. I don't know if the storms are the cause of it, but I know that we do work 24 hours a day. There's uh, someone like myself on 24 hours a day to respond to emergency calls for safety first and then uh, our reliability of course is also important. But for someone like myself in the middle of the night just waiting to go and, and get to it as fast as we can and make it happen, it is probably just you know, one person. But uh, sometimes all that's needed just to assess the situation and then get the guys there as quick as we can.

Speaker C: You know, when you're out and you're, you know, people are meeting you or they're seeing you doing your work, what are some of the questions or the curiosities that people have that they share with you when they sort of see you going up in the bucket or when they're seeing you sort of pull up?

Speaker B: Uh, they do usually people.

Speaker C: I see a big smile coming on your face.

Speaker B: So people love the bucket truck. I. I love my bucket. People say. Always say, oh, I could use that for. You know, they always want to go for a ride. You know, you go for a ride in or something. But, um, yeah, that is one of the first things they see is our, you know, our big bucket trucks. And I roll up and they say, I can't believe you drive that big. That big bucket truck. And I always want to, uh, say that, you know, that's a small part of what I do. You know, I want to open up the bins and show them all the cool tools and all the things that I have that we use that I find much more fascinating than the bucket. But. But, uh, yeah, that. The bucket. They definitely. People always look twice when they see this woman come out of it.

Speaker C: Yeah. So on that subject, you again, you're only. I think you're one of two female line workers in the northeast. Is that correct? Or New York State.

Speaker B: I don't know. I think we're in the process of hunting them down or something. Because only when they did that recent, um, interview with me did we start actually looking around and saying, geez, are there any others? I surely would like to, uh, exchange notes on our experiences. And maybe we would think of ways that there could be opportunities for more women to find their space here. I think there's a way that more women could see theirselves doing this kind of work because I feel like it's smart work. It's a job that requires not just a physical, uh, ability to put a couple heavy things together, but, um, a real. Especially in troubleshooting, just thinking your way through solving problems. And um, I think if they knew what it was really like, I think they could see themselves, uh, doing what I do. Well.

Speaker C: Thank you. I mean, that's also what we're hoping to do in terms of you kind of. You serve as an ambassador. And, you know, one of the things that we're seeing right. Is you're seeing a m. Retiring workforce. Right across line mechanics and in the utility space. And how do we get, um, how do we build out more interest so that, you know, young people actually choose to work in the utility space and choose to go into. To being a line mechanic.

Speaker B: So I. I know one of the big things that drove me to continue with my apprenticeship, even when it was difficult, was the enormous amount of pride that my foreman had in their work and that they had in teaching me. There is a lot of pride in Your work, at the end of the day, you know, you provided uh, service to your community, the ability to go and keep the lights on and that means a lot. So we do provide a vital role and there's a pride in that. And it's also helped me with my self confidence as a person. I caught the disease from my foreman. I just at this point think there's nothing I can't figure out how to do. I don't know how true that is, but I believe it.

Speaker C: Well, it sounds like you've been in different situations, right?

Speaker B: Yeah. And the uh, camaraderie that I had when I first, because I didn't just start off as a one person crew, I started off with a team of guys doing construction, setting poles, running wire, everything from underground work, we do it all. A line mechanic operates a lot of uh, big equipment and uh, our digger derrick trucks. I don't know how much everybody knows about that, but you know, that set the poles, you know, line mechanics do that, string the wire, use backhoe, dump trucks, anything that you come across figured out how to, how to use it. And I, you know, I. It's not something you go to school for. You don't just go to college and learn that. You learn that from your co workers, you learn that from someone mentoring you and you get more skilled as you go. That's part of it. You only just begin to learn when you start and you're only really as good as the people around you and it builds a team mentality, uh, and a pride about your group. I really had some great foremen and mentors along the way that gave me a lot of skills and believed in me and my ability to do it because you know, you want to have someone that you can count on that's going to be able to pull their side of the work, you know. And um, here I am now. I do it by my. I learned enough to be able to go off by myself and be a one person crew, which whoever came up with that name is. I don't know, I don't know. It sounds, sounds strange but those people taught me enough where now I can go off on my own, make decisions and do things, um, safely and be relied on. And now as my heroes are retired and gone, I look around and I thought, well, geez, well I should be one of them. I should be like these people. I don't have any women behind me, um, to mentor. And I'm really kind of disappointed about that. I mean, I wish I had thought of it sooner. We're getting, um, some women interested. And not that we don't have any women in the company, we do. There's so many different places where smart women can go and work. Here in this company we have, and I know most of them, they're terrific. In our substations, um, in our underground, we have a whole other, you know, I'm in the line department with electricity, but there's a whole other underground department. There's so many different aspects of planning where I originally wanted to go. There's just so many other avenues for them.

Speaker C: I was just going to say, I think you are for sure a hero to many people that you have trained under you. We kind of hope that also through this conference conversation that it may spark that interest amongst, uh, young people and maybe young women as well. To kind of think about being a line mechanic and the opportunities that it affords and also recognize the essentiality of the work that you do, demand for the work that you do is not going to go down. It's only going to go up.

Speaker B: I think the more that we're out there and seen as a choice, seen as an opportunity and maybe, um, and know what, uh, what the rewards are for that. There's been, you know, it's really been a fulfilling career for me and, um, I'd like to help somebody else along through it.

Speaker C: No, I hear it, I hear it. I mean, I love the way that you talk about your work. Uh, you think you're very much of an extraordinary role model. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for joining us today. We really do appreciate it. We're excited to, uh, have had the opportunity to bring you on the Clean Energy Revolution podcast. Thank you.

Speaker B: Thank you so much.

Speaker D: So thank you for joining us on the show. Subscribe so you don't miss our next episode, which will be out next month. And thank you so much to my brilliant co host, Carolyn. Always a pleasure.

Speaker C: Well, back at you, Laura. Thank you,

Speaker B: Sam.