POWERGRAMS

10 Boyd, center, won SEE award for his DERT project, shown at right., and apply in what I do for Alabama Power." Agnew concedes the subject maer of the Safety Code is "considered dry" by most people. "Some of the meetings are quite lengthy. During the years where change proposals and comments are veed, workdays regularly exceed 12 hours," he said. But the downside is worth it. "Serving with SEE allows the opportunity to associate with some of the brightest people in our industry and gain exposure to other methods of designing and operating the electrical grid," Agnew said. Boyd, the award-winner, is a Distribution reliability engineer who isn't actively involved in SEE, which goes to show how the organization doesn't give preferential treatment to working group members. Boyd's Distribution Engineering Reliability Tool (DERT) won the top award for its category, which is one of the most competitive. DERT is a computer application that tracks data concerning recurring trouble spots and other outage information, crunches the numbers, then comes up with results that allow engineers to make quick, informed decisions to improve reliability and, as a result, customer satisfaction. "It's a one-stop shop for engineers to research and analyze outage data to make informed decisions to try and improve reliability," Boyd said. He doesn't make any bones about his motive for the project. "I originally built it for myself to make my job easier," said Boyd. "Once other engineers saw the benefit of the program, it quickly spread throughout Birmingham Division and now throughout the entire state." Meanwhile, his Alabama Power colleagues continue to shape the utility industry through participation with SEE. SEE National Electrical Safety Code committee during meeting.

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