Each year, Oncor begins preparing for higher temperatures well before summer arrives in Texas. The process is called “Summer Prep,” and involves months of cross-functional planning and field work by Oncor employees.

Starting in January of each year, employees at Oncor’s two Distribution Operations Centers are working with their partners in the field to forecast the “load,” or amount of electricity expected to be used by customers.

“Our maintenance strategy department starts looking at data analytics and analyzing areas of vulnerability that we could really be focusing on for summer prep,” said Elizabeth Barrett, a Senior Design Manager and former Assistant District Manager in Temple.

“We’re looking at any areas that could be overloaded,” she said. “Overloaded transformers. We’re using meter data consistently to look at how those transformers could be affected by the increased load and whether or not those transformers need to be possibly changed out.”

Michael Ortez, Senior Field Construction Coordinator, Dallas, oversees some of that work, whether it’s replacing transformers or wire, a process known as “reconductoring.”

“When it comes to summer prep, the significance with a large reconductoring project would be the added capacity,” Ortez said. “These extreme hot summers definitely demand more ability, more load that’s put on the lines.”

Preparing for extreme temperatures, whether it’s intense heat or bone-chilling cold, is a process that goes on year-round at Oncor.

“The reality is the sum of the parts is greater than the whole,” said Chris Darby, Director, Southeast Distribution Operations. “When you put everybody together. We’re all working towards this one goal of essentially providing reliable service to our customers.”