Bend Don't Break: Alisa Dunlap, Pacific Power's Regional Business Manager for Central Oregon

In this episode host Aaron Switzer sits down with Alisa Dunlap, Pacific Power's Regional Business Manager for Central Oregon. With a background in political science, government affairs, public policy, and utility planning, Dunlap shares how her career evolved from health care policy work at OHSU to helping guide energy infrastructure and customer growth planning across Central Oregon for Pacific Power.

The conversation explores the realities of managing energy needs in one of Oregon's fastest growing regions, including long range utility planning, substation development, transmission projects, data center growth, and wildfire safety. Dunlap explains how Pacific Power works with communities, businesses, and local governments to prepare for future demand while balancing public concerns and the reliability needs of Central Oregon's expanding population.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Welcome to the Ben Don't Break Podcast. We are powered by the Stores, then it's a locally owned media company and weekly newspaper. This podcast is our heading in the rushing waters of local journalism. We are glad that you've taken some of your time to listen to us and chat with the people who shape our local community. Support us through our member program at BenStours.com.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Thank you to our presenting sponsor, Remax Key Properties, a family-owned full-service real estate brokerage specializing in residential, luxury, commercial, new construction, and ranch and land properties. Their new state-of-the-art facility at 42 Greenwood Avenue is a modern collaborative space and the new home of the Ben Don't Break Podcast Recording Studio.

SPEAKER_03 0:45

I'm Erin Sweitzer, publisher of The Source and co-producer of this podcast with Megan Burton. Thank you for listening today, wherever you are. There's a lot of things that can take your time. We're glad you're spending a little bit of it with us on the podcast. Today we have Alyssa Alisa.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Good job.

SPEAKER_03 1:08

I said Alyssa, listeners, and I got corrected. So Alyssa Dunlap is Alisa Dunlap is Pacific Powers Regional Business Manager for Central Oregon, bringing more than 15 years of experience spanning customer engagement, infrastructure development, government affairs, public policy, and regional economic development. Throughout her career, Alisa has served as a strategic liaison between business communities, government entities, and utility organizations. She has successfully negotiated commercial energy agreements, supported major infrastructure and transmission projects, and helped align utility planning with customer growth objectives. Based here on Bend, Alisa is passionate about supporting sustainable growth, strengthening community partnerships, and helping businesses and regions prepare for the energy needs of the future, particularly our region. Lisa, thanks for being here.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

Yeah, thank you for having me. Gosh, that uh intro makes me sound really important.

SPEAKER_03 2:02

It comes from it comes from you guys. We we edited it a little bit, but uh yeah, I think uh it's probably probably warranted, but we'll chat and find out.

SPEAKER_02 2:11

Yeah, sounds good. Sounds good.

SPEAKER_03 2:13

So um I let's just start with uh where did where did you go to school and and how does one get into the field of energy management?

SPEAKER_01 2:22

Yeah, goodness. Um school brought me nowhere close to where I am today. Azure years. What was your undergrad? Uh my undergrad was double major in political science and philosophy. I thought I was gonna go to law school, got an internship, decided nope. Um being a lawyer was not for me. So I needed to find another path.

SPEAKER_03 2:40

Right.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

So I said, I love to learn. Um, I'm gonna go to graduate school. So I ended up doing a master's in political science um in Boston and thought I was gonna go work in some sort of international economic development. Um, but then my husband said, Well, hey, wait, I want to go to graduate school. And so that took us to Portland. Yeah. And I said, Wow, I know really not a whole lot about Portland.

SPEAKER_03 3:08

Yeah, so you're an East Coast girl.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

Uh no, I grew up in California. Yeah, I went to undergrad um at UC Davis. Okay. And um, the only thing I really knew about Portland is that it was green and that it rained a lot. And I said, Well, I guess I need new clothes.

SPEAKER_03 3:23

Right. I always think of political science majors as the the highest of the dreamers. There's uh there's I was a political science major for a year and a half, and at least for me, the mentality was, well, I can go anywhere from here and you know, I could go into politics, I could be president, who you never know. And so when I hear of other political science majors, did you have similar aspirations? Were you like it's open-ended, right?

SPEAKER_01 3:48

Absolutely open-ended. I have never really aspired to public office. I greatly respect our elected officials, but I think that is just a very, very tough position to be in. But yeah, I I really had no um grand plan. I thought I was gonna live abroad. That was kind of my grand plan. Um but I've traveled abroad, but never lived there. Right. Um, but love where I live. So it all worked out.

SPEAKER_03 4:12

So when you got to Portland, uh, what was it that you began to work work as?

SPEAKER_01 4:17

Yeah. So I ended up at Oregon Health and Science University, OHSU. Um, they really took a chance on me. I really I was brand new to the state, but you know, I did all my research. I didn't come from a healthcare policy background. All of my political science experience was international work.

SPEAKER_02 4:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:35

Um, but man, did I study up on the Oregon legislature and OHSU hired me in their government affairs department? And so you put your political science stuff right to work. I did. I had really amazing mentors at OHSU. And I I could not, I'm just forever grateful for their mentorship. Um, and then, you know, after about three or four years there, I decided maybe a different policy area might be something that I wanted to try out. Um, had a friend that was working at Pacific Power, and he kind of said, Hey, there's an opening in government affairs, you should check it out. Yeah. And again, I went in and said, Well, I've been in the state for only four years. I know nothing about energy policy, but I know the legislature. Yes. And I know the policy arena. I really enjoy policy engagement. I really enjoy regulatory environments. So again, got hired at Pacific Power. And I've I'm just incredibly grateful for um my prior mentors and people that have taken chances on me and given me really amazing opportunities.

SPEAKER_03 5:39

When you uh so what year was it that you first uh got in with Pacific Power? When would that have been?

SPEAKER_01 5:45

2010.

SPEAKER_03 5:47

Oh, okay. Yeah. I mean, pop I mean, power policy has always been pretty spicy, but I gotta say, like you you didn't know what you were getting into in 2010 compared to what power is today.

SPEAKER_01 6:00

Yeah, I um yeah I exactly. I think it the landscape has changed. I think if anything, it's gotten more interesting and more engaging. And and since I've left government affairs, I've kept some of that policy engagement, which is still really uh something that I enjoy and something I enjoy doing. And I get to do that here, some of it at the hyper-local level, right? Um, some still engagement at the state level. But energy policy, I think, will just continue to be something that's of top of mind for for folks as we just become ever more connected.

SPEAKER_03 6:34

Ever more power users. I mean, I I've been uh I wouldn't say I'm tracking my power usage, but I would say with all the debates around power these days, it's certainly more top of mind. Like, what kind of user am I? Like, am I a light user? And you know, you can walk into the source offices and know you're a high user.

SPEAKER_01 6:54

Well, and I think one of the kind of amazing things I've seen over the years at Pacific Power is the tools we've given customers to have that in insight into their own energy usage. So you can, as a residential customer, go in and look where where am I peeking? You can find out if your teenagers are watching TV or using the dryer in the middle of the night. I mean, maybe not quite to that granular level, but you can really see where your usage is going.

SPEAKER_03 7:19

Yeah, I gotta imagine that things like the nest thermostat and a lot of that, a lot of that tech stuff that's come into the home has um greatly enhanced you got your company's ability to communicate to people like you can see it now.

SPEAKER_01 7:33

Absolutely. And I think it's also allowed us to really find programs that work for customers and really tailor um different types of customer programming to what customers are interested in. And I think that is only um going to ever change as we move forward.

SPEAKER_03 7:52

So you're in Portland at Pacific Power. What's the hop that gets you over into out of the wet and into the dry here?

SPEAKER_01 8:00

Yeah, well, I actually went wetter after I left Portland. So I became a regional business manager in 2015. I covered uh Multnomah County. I also covered Clatsup and Lincoln County, which are two coastal communities, and it rains a whole lot more on the coast and than it does in Portland, but ended up living out in Clatsup County um for a number of years. And what a beautiful place, man. My husband and I just feel completely grateful for the opportunities. We've been to a really the tour of Oregon. Yeah. Um, and so we were out there for quite a number of years, and then the opportunity for Central Oregon came up. So it was a lateral move for me. But I mean, Central Oregon has got so many amazing things for for this particular role. Yeah. Not only is the growth from a customer perspective just like nowhere else in our system, but you're also working on big projects like transmission projects and getting into some of the more sophisticated customers that have really interesting questions. I have amazing conversations with customers that I am just so grateful for those questions because it helps me learn and grow. And I'm not an engineer by background, as we discussed, but I certainly work with a lot of uh a lot of engineers and have to figure out how to answer those customer questions.

SPEAKER_03 9:20

What are the boundaries of your district, like what you oversee?

SPEAKER_01 9:24

Correct. Uh I cover Deschutes County, where Pacific Power serves. So there's also Central Electric Cooperative, who serves the community, um, Crook County, Jefferson County, and Warm Springs. So CEC does overlap in some of those areas, as does mid-state as you get a little further south in Deschutes County, but uh Pacific Power has service territory in all those locations.

SPEAKER_03 9:48

So I am extremely ignorant in the dynamics of you know, all of the the rural versus increasingly urban bend. Um what does that mean for your position? I mean, I gotta believe we're booming and power needs here have got to be booming as well. What does it look like for you as you're planning or for your management purposes? Yeah, um I I mean somebody wants to I think people just expect that line's gonna show up at their house, right? You know, no one's like, oh, they'll get here eventually.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

And it does take extreme planning. So from a utility perspective, we do long-term planning, right? Which is you know, 20-year horizon. What are we seeing? Then we do shorter term planning, we do hyperlocal planning. And for a community like Central Oregon, where you know Deschutes County is growing faster than any other county we have in our service territory by leaps and bounds.

SPEAKER_03 10:42

So you're an important person in the in the company hierarchy.

SPEAKER_01 10:46

I need to be able to inform the executives that are making decisions about where to put resources and where to find capacity and where to build substations. Absolutely. And I can only get that from customer input, right? Or from policy decisions that are being made at the local level. So it is really a team effort and super interesting to work on things like substations because as we all kind of were discussing, we are increasingly power users. And yet when it comes to citing a substation, figuring out where it where it should go, how to direct the lines to where they need to be. I mean, those get into very difficult sometimes community conversations. And I'm there to provide a support and a liaison and to listen and to make sure that we're balancing all of those things as we move forward with our planning.

SPEAKER_03 11:38

Yeah. I mean, increasingly we've seen, you know, you you in your planning, you're trying you're picking out these communities where substations are going to probably, based on your planning and the government input you're getting where the user needs going to be great. But you're getting styming now on um the public level with protests around substations, AI conversations that are coming in. How do you navigate all that?

SPEAKER_01 12:05

I mean, first and foremost, I listen. Yeah um kind of in all of those spaces. But I think, you know, we are a highly regulated business. We have land use um requirements that are set by either city, county, state, federal. Um, so we we have parameters that we work within. But really, it's it is an education campaign as well to make sure that the misinformation that's out there, people are receiving appropriate information and accurate information. And I I do think there is an there is a huge element of learning to hear what are people's concerns and how to address them. And sometimes that's just a further conversation, sometimes it's you know, educ education. Um, but a lot I do a lot of listening. Sometimes my colleagues um who also operate around the state, we talk, we we kind of say that we're you know regional therapists sometimes. Um, but I I actually really enjoy those customer conversations or community conversations because then you really find out what people are interested in and what their um, you know, what their aspirations are, what or how they feel about your industry. So I I find those conversations really rewarding.

SPEAKER_03 13:16

When you talk about planning for Central Oregon and its growing needs, I mean a lot of the there, there's so much. I mean, everybody loves the little benefits that AI brings, but there is a ton of lashback on what what AI is and what it's gonna do to to communities. Is it fair given how much development there is to label these substations as AI substations? I mean, that's just a question that I have because when you hear these things going in and they're labeled they're AI, you know, this is gonna be used for AI. Is that accurate? Or is it that these are that AI is a big part of what that's gonna be? How do you how can people differentiate like a good substation from an AI? Is there such a thing? Is there a bad AI substation?

SPEAKER_01 14:06

Um, well, there I guess I I'm a little confused by the terminology myself. So they there, I mean, a substation is a substation is a substation. It's power. It's power. So it where it goes, I think is really the question that you're asking. And the Oregon legislature in let's see, not 2026 but 2025 was very clear um when they passed the Oregon Power Act that data centers, um, AI data centers, data centers generally speaking, large users are required to pay for the infrastructure that serves them. So if there is a substation going in next to a data center, that data center has paid for that infrastructure. It was very clear by the Oregon legislature that any uh load size, so that's what we use to determine what's a large load or what's a small load, anything over 20 megawatts in the state of Oregon is considered large load. And so that would be um fall under the Power Act. Currently, right now, we are in a regulatory proceeding at the Oregon Public Utility Commission, which is our regulator at the state level, um, to determine the PUC. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 15:11

I know it's enough to be dangerous, but to determine kind of what that looks like.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

How does the implementation of that law look like from what we consider what we call tariffs or rate schedules? Um, how how does all of that work itself out? And that's currently under review right now.

SPEAKER_03 15:29

When you um so how is it that currently, given given the environment, how are you planning or what is specific powers process, especially in central Oregon, for planning where these new substations are gonna go, how you're interacting with data? I mean, that's gotta be your if it isn't fire, which we'll get to in a second, it's gotta be data centers next.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

So actually, you know, the organic load growth in Central Oregon is really what's driving the percentage of load change. It's not data centers.

SPEAKER_02 16:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:02

Um and and again, like I said, data centers are in their own class. They have their own rules and regulations that are being worked out right now, but just the general customer interconnection queue, which is what it's called when a customer comes to the cloud.

SPEAKER_03 16:15

Interconnection queue.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

Yeah. When when they come to us and say we would like power, yeah, it is vast here. And my project list, I primarily only work with customers that are one megawatt and above, but let's let's use Jack Straw as a really iconic um building invent. That building, the load of that building is equivalent to like small manufacturing. Okay, because it's an all-electric building. So I I the landscape in Central Oregon is such that the the number of customer projects in that interconnection queue is vast. And that is what informs our planning. So we look at that list and we say, okay, we we have this large interconnection queue. Where are they all located? Um, do we have substation capacity? If not, do we have room on our property to add a transformer to add capacity?

SPEAKER_03 17:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:07

If not, well, we might need to go per care land to build a new substation.

SPEAKER_03 17:12

Let's let's use Jackstraw as an example because as it's coming in, it's certainly going to change the infrastructure. You know years in advance that that thing's coming, but you're responding to the fact, I mean, you're kind of watching the city as they go approved, and then it comes sliding over to your desk. Is that fair to say, hey, this is coming?

SPEAKER_01 17:33

Sometimes, but honestly, I try to tell customers early and often with communication. So let's use bioscience as a good example of a thriving industry here. So we've got multiple bioscience companies here, and I'm in almost daily conversations with many of them. And they are changing their projections or what their needs are. And that is an ongoing conversation, planning years in advance. We're talking five, 10 years in advance. And that's the kind of customer sophistication and the kind of customer engagement that we as a utility really like.

SPEAKER_02 18:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

Because then we can plan for that. And I think customers, especially here, are sophisticated enough for the most part to do that early and often communication. I have a an email that's sitting in my draft folders that literally walks a customer through what the interconnection process is like. And I probably hit send on that about four or five times a day. Wow. Given, you know, depending on what the day is.

SPEAKER_03 18:32

And I'm encouraged that you think people are sophisticated in this kind of stuff. It makes me feel behind the curve.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

But we have some really, really sophisticated engineering and architecture firms here that I think have worked with Pacific Power enough that they know our processes and they advise their clients and they say, go talk to the power company, ASAP. And I often will get requests of, hey, we haven't even gone through site review or planning with the city. Can you tell us what the capacity is at such and such a site?

SPEAKER_02 19:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:00

So in that way, I think we we are in a unique position because I've now worked in seven counties across the state at Oregon. And I'd say this one is is more sophisticated and knowing to do that early.

SPEAKER_03 19:16

I wouldn't, I mean, I know no disparagement out there at the city uh planning process, but it can be herky jerky. I don't think anybody enters that process and goes, whoo, smooth sailing, got in, whoop, pro, boom, we were into, we were into shovel, shovel ready. So when you're sitting there, you're you're kind of you must have some kind of like, you know, track spreadsheet horses going across the line and then not going across. And yeah, so some would call it a spreadsheet.

SPEAKER_01 19:46

Yes, absolutely. And I feel like um it's helpful when customers know where they are in that process. And it's helpful to know how um what what is their confidence that their project is going to move forward. I mean, we can only do planning for the amount we can do planning, right? People give us load projections. No customer has ever hit exactly the load that they say they are going to. And so we have measures that diversify that load so that, you know, we are planning for what we're their expected need is, depending on if they're a 24-hour operator, if they're only operating, you know, eight hours a day. So there's a lot that goes into those calculations, but it is a different process to working regionally because there's different processes in the city of Bend versus the city of Redmond versus the city of Pineville versus address.

SPEAKER_03 20:36

When you were talking about people getting in the queue, I was thinking the the folks in Redmond got to be so needy because there's so many of them, and they're that place is exploding. I mean, but I know Bend is is growing as well, but when I go through Redmond, I and and going from zero to 60, right? Like you can't have had a lot of built-in infrastructure before that that thing, that train took off and the airport, you know. Is that yours?

SPEAKER_01 21:02

It is so Redmond is our fastest growing city across all of our 243 communities. Um, second is Bend. Right. So you're you know, you're neck and neck there. But yes, Redmond is is um a challenge in some ways. Yeah. Um, but we have uh two substations right now that are in process of being upgraded, and a third um that we were in land negotiation for procuring for a new substation with Bend.

SPEAKER_03 21:30

Which just gives you a sense of what's going on there. I mean, you you can drive through on the highway and look left and right and see it, but it's so vast, you know, the amount that they're they're developing there and more power to them. I mean, I just flew in the other day and I was like, Scanses here, you know, like this is such big that's a big name to bring into little old Redmond.

SPEAKER_01 21:52

I did too. And um in my previous region, I managed PDX and they were also going through massive change and and Massive growth at PDX. And I'd say, you know, our airport here is quite remarkable for the size of community we have. We're very lucky.

SPEAKER_03 22:08

Yeah. Well, we had mentioned, I want to get the name right, uh, Blueprint 500 KV. Project Blueprint. Maybe elaborate a little on.

SPEAKER_01 22:17

Uh so project blueprint is our 500 kilovolts. So KV stands for kilovolt um transmission lines. So transmission is the highest level voltage um that you that a utility will have. And the lines going from uh Klamath Falls to Central Oregon um because of our growth. It is for capacity.

SPEAKER_03 22:37

So right now um is there one that's 500 um kilovolts coming up from Klamath Falls, you're saying?

SPEAKER_01 22:44

Uh this will be a new line. Okay. So I was just about to say the line, the line, the current lines that you see.

SPEAKER_03 22:50

Wait, let me interrupt you again.

SPEAKER_01 22:52

Was it the current lines that you see out there, the big steel structures, the kind of you know, unsightly ones? Um, those are all owned by Bonneville Power Administration or BPA. So BPA is the largest transmission owner in the Northwest. We are second. So this is an opportunity for us to expand capacity into the region because those BPA lines are fully subscribed. Okay. Meaning they are at capacity. Um into central Oregon? Uh a 500 line. I'm I I would I could say a number, but the stumpter has all of them. So like BPA owns them.

SPEAKER_03 23:30

So I'm not as so this will be the first Pacific power line of this size?

SPEAKER_01 23:35

Correct. Yes, coming into central Oregon. We have smaller voltage um transmission in the region, but this will be the the biggest um 500 line. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:44

And it's coming from Klamath Falls.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

It's coming from Klamath Falls. So there's a big uh transmission substation already down in the Klamath area, which is people ask, well, why Klamath? Well, there's a transmission substation which taps into generating capacity across the West. So how it works is you have a generation facility. Uh, oftentimes those are maybe in the middle of nowhere, sometimes they're not. Um, but you got to get that power from the generator to the home. So you have to go over a transmission line and then into a substation, which I like to consider, like I think of it kind of like a post office. Yeah. You take in the giant packages or the giant shipments, the post office, then puts it into smaller packages that are out for delivery to a home. And that's what a substation does. So it steps down a voltage, and then you can deliver that power safely to a house.

SPEAKER_03 24:36

So that's coming currently being constructed by you guys?

SPEAKER_01 24:40

It is in scoping right now. So we did a round of public comment um and public review last summer. Um, we will be doing another round of public comment at the end of um August. And we basically went from a whole bunch of route options and put all of those out there. There were five of them for public comment, and we've um done a bunch more scoping and environmental review and uh kind of narrowed those down to two routes. Okay. So those will be publicly um reviewed at the end of summer. We'll take public comment. I think right now the comments, there were 800 and something written comments, and we got 75 voicemails, um, and then a lot of engagement from those public open houses that we did. Um, so from there, then we'll try to take it down to a place where we can find a route that is least impactful. We know transmission and energy infrastructure is impactful, but we're gonna try to find the least impactful route that we could go in for permitting. And there's multiple well low layers of permitting um from federal all the way down to potentially county level.

SPEAKER_03 25:48

Yeah, and another in another lifetime, it seems my wife was an archaeologist who worked on gas pipelines through Native American lands and coordinating all everything that goes into coordinating a line that's got to pass through multiple city, state, native areas, you know, private property. And so I don't envy you that process. It's uh every one of those little robot, what they look like robots, right? Down the line is uh somebody's land, you know.

SPEAKER_01 26:21

Yeah, it's a difficult process.

SPEAKER_03 26:23

How long does that process take, do you think, from the point you're at now to breaking ground?

SPEAKER_01 26:29

I mean, we are hopeful to have not even broken ground, but in service, like the line is usable by the mid-2030s. Oh I think that's an extremely aggressive timeline, but I I am hopeful we it's needed. I the region needs it, like I said, fastest growing community across our service territory.

SPEAKER_03 26:47

Um Yeah, I can't imagine there's much of a uh an there may be an argument about where, but I can't imagine there's an argument over if it's needed.

SPEAKER_01 26:57

Yeah, or why it's needed. Yeah, I I feel like most of the public conversations I've had it are about where.

SPEAKER_03 27:05

Turning uh in the last uh time we have it it's super dry out there. It's definitely fire season. Increasingly, electrical lines are something that people are very concerned about during the season. Um, I'm sure it keeps you up at night. I I I mean those red flag warnings that come over on your phone, I I consider, since I'm not in the industry, somewhat annoying, but uh but for you, it's uh it's gotta be uh, you know, uh a part of your job. What what is what's it like now during these summers?

SPEAKER_01 27:36

Yeah, um, well, safety first.

SPEAKER_03 27:39

So we do we can now shut power off.

SPEAKER_01 27:43

We can, um, but let's talk about that because I think there, I think there is some miscommunication and and misinformation that's out there. So uh Pacific Power has been operating under what we call seasonal operational practices um for several years now, and there are three of them. Um, the most extreme is a public safety power shutoff or a PSPS, and that is the one that people think we do, and we've only ever done one in the state of Oregon, yeah, and that was in 2022.

SPEAKER_03 28:12

I mean, personally, I think it's great. I mean, I I don't know if you get people who do think that's a bad thing, but if there's fire coming in, shut those, shut it down. I mean, that's just my uh my podcast opinion. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

Well, thank you for that. Um, the you know, all of this is under the guise of safety and keeping our customers and our community safe. But a PSPS comes with a lot of communication protocol, um, as advanced notice as seven days. So, and it is all weather driven and conditions driven, relative humidity, all of that. Um, the second operational practice is emergency de-energization. So we've had a few of those in central Oregon, and that is a uh direct result of active fire. So active fire headed toward an asset of ours, electrical infrastructure of some kind. And we will do a proactive de-energization or emergency because there is an emergent event happening at the time. And there have been a few of those. Um, but again, we try to do as much isolation of the system so having the least number of customer impact possible. And then the third one is called enhanced safety settings or ESS. And that is a practice that can make the system more sensitive. So I like to think of it as under conditions that are not seasonal operational practices, the system basically has a three-touch system before a customer experiences an outage. So if we have a tree branch, a leaf, a squirrel, a bird, whatever it is, touch a line. The line will try to reclose itself three times before a customer experiences an outage.

SPEAKER_03 29:51

People, I think, I think some people are aware of the process where all of a sudden the lights go out for a second and then you kind of wait because you know that that power is being shut off and on and off and on. That's what you're that's what people are experiencing.

SPEAKER_01 30:04

That kind of that is not what people are. I mean, sometimes under under normal operation, like it if those three try attempts to reclose can do flickers, but normally customers see nothing unless unless the system tries to do that three times and it says nope, there's still something that's a disturbance. Okay, and then a customer experiences an outage. What happens under ESS is it's a one touch. So any, I mean, a wind gust that might have debris in it, um, a leaf, a tree branch, a squirrel, bird, all of those things. Now the system is in under ESS and it's a one touch. So any of those things can, yes, squirrels are very I feel like I'm reinforcing urban myth here.

SPEAKER_03 30:52

Like you know, I probably now I'm thinking it probably comes from my dad. You know, oh yeah, there's gonna be another one here. What you know, so let's lay that to rest.

SPEAKER_01 31:02

But I will say ESS, it can be, you know, a major disturbance for customers. Um, you know, there it is, we recognize it makes the system more susceptible susceptible to outages, and they can be longer in duration as we patrol and try to find out what the cause was. And we know that those are it, it is, it is difficult for customers. Yeah. Um, but it is for safety purposes. And we we've done, we continue to do um system isolation to try to put those uh systems in place to really make sure that it's only in those high um risk areas that we have those practices operating.

SPEAKER_03 31:46

I mean, you had mentioned that sense organs are kind of savvy, but um, I do feel like people of late are more attentive to what it means to get power just because they understand the risks that come with it. And I mean, if people are out there complaining that there are precautionary measures that we take to avoid fire and stuff, and their power goes out, I would hope if you're reading that there's a little understanding on that side because it's that it's a complicated and dangerous system.

SPEAKER_01 32:21

Yeah, I think that's very aptly put. And we're all of these practices are for public safety.

SPEAKER_03 32:27

Yeah. I mean, I don't, you know, I don't want the line going down in my driveway.

SPEAKER_01 32:31

No, me either.

SPEAKER_03 32:33

I've seen it in Atlanta. Uh our a tornado came through one time and the line was dancing in our cul-de-sac, you know.

SPEAKER_01 32:41

And I hope you stayed.

SPEAKER_03 32:42

Oh, we're I mean, I was looking out the window, but I was like, that is bad, you know. Anyways, so no, it was scary. We are actually at the end of our uh podcast. Summer. Is there okay? Keep talking until I I feel that. Is there um is there anything that we didn't touch on that you wanna you want to speak to before we let our viewers go on their merry way?

SPEAKER_01 33:05

Not really. No, this is a lovely conversation. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_03 33:08

Well, I don't uh I don't envy or in some ways, maybe I do envy the fact that you're you're in such a um dynamic position right now. I mean 2010 to the what it means to be the front person for power to the area and people's awareness, how much it's in the news. Um, you know, it's that what's the Chinese proverb? They say it's Chinese and cursed to live in interesting times. You know, that um these are interesting times for power for sure.

SPEAKER_01 33:38

Absolutely. Yeah, happy to talk more anytime.

SPEAKER_03 33:41

All right, thank you, uh Lisa, for being here with us today. Uh, this has been the Ben Don't Break Podcast. If you like what you're heard, go to Bensource.com, become a member, donate, and we will bring Alyssa back and see how she is after the large 500 kilovolt line comes up from Klamath Falls. I'm intrigued. You've been listening to the Ben Don't Break Podcast, powered by the Source Weekly. To read, hear, and see more of what we do, go to BensOurce.com.