Plan of Attack

Engineers tackle tough challenges together at TEC conferences

In Jeff Hinshaw’s 40 years at North Plains EC, he’s experienced two 100-year storms and the largest wildfire in Texas history. Something isn’t adding up.

"Change is nothing new, but the speed of change is,” he told his colleagues at the TEC Engineering, Environmental and Materials Management conferences held in Frisco in September.

Hinshaw, the safety director at Texas’ northernmost co-op, hoped the 2017 ice storm that took out 3,100 poles and caused $13 million in damage was his co-op’s last major disaster. And then, earlier this year, the Smokehouse Creek Fire devastated more than 1 million acres of grasslands, taking 31 transmission structures (and hundreds of homes) with it.

“We’ve had ice storms and tornadoes. Tornadoes move pretty fast. Ice storms are a little different; they take hours,” Hinshaw said. “But this wildfire—it was like it was moving in slow motion.” It burned Feb. 26–March 14.

“You just waited for stuff to burn down and then you moved in when you could.”

Electric cooperative engineers like Hinshaw work behind the scenes but on the frontlines, answering middle-of-the-night phone calls when something goes wrong, devising temporary and long-term fixes for complex challenges, and all the while, trying to keep everyone safe—often with small teams that are always looking for the next time-saving tool.

Conferences like these are an opportunity to share what they’ve learned, helping their cooperative colleagues tackle the next disaster.

Like the supercell that struck Big Country EC in June 2023. More than 400 poles were on the ground, affecting at least six circuits, forcing the co-op to call in reinforcements from neighboring co-ops for the first time in John VanMater’s tenure. But with temperatures well into the triple-digits, the restoration team decided to end every workday with a 4:30 p.m. debriefing, instead of working until dark, as lineworkers often do.

“It was just so hot that we chose to do things differently,” said VanMater, vice president of engineering at BCEC, “and all the guys said by the end of the storm that they were the freshest that they’d ever been because they actually got true rest.”

New consumer technologies—electric vehicles, residential solar and battery storage systems, and smart thermostats—bring their own set of challenges and opportunities.

Since EVs and their residential charging systems can effectively double a house’s peak load, Michael Lattner at United Cooperative Services devised a simple, old-school but effective way to find out where those chargers are being added to the co-op’s system: rebates.

“It encourages the member to come and tell you that they have an EV, and knowing where those EVs are located is helpful information,” said Lattner, planning engineering manager at United. So far, the co-op has approved 137 rebates for members who install Level 2 chargers, and that has made system planning and transformer upgrades much easier.

“[The rebates] are going to pay for themselves,” Lattner said.

One tool that Hinshaw leaned on during the Smokehouse Creek fire was his trusty drone. It could go places co-op vehicles couldn’t.

“You’re able to assess the problems much more quickly,” he said.

But ultimately, the best tool—and one cited and exhibited by many speakers—remains Cooperation Among Cooperatives. Nothing beats a crew of neighboring lineworkers—or engineers 800 miles and one phone call away—who are ready to pitch in.

“Co-ops are wonderful,” Hinshaw said. “We are in a really rural area, so we really rely on other co-ops to come in and help us, and that’s where you get the best help. We’re appreciative of that.”

The next TEC Engineering, Environmental and Materials Management conferences and exhibit show are set for Sept. 22–25, 2025, at the Embassy Suites San Marcos. Click here for more photos from the 2024 event.