Technicians should be praised, not criticized

Rather than criticizing Florida Power & Light for inferior communication, their engineers and technicians should be praised for maintaining and restoring electrical power — quicker than after Hurricanes Jeanne and Francis.

I live in a gated community in Palm Beach County. Fortunately we need not lose power because smart meters and line sensors were installed and devices similar to programmable logic controllers (PLC) [an industrial digital computer which has adapted for the control of processes that requires high reliability control and ease of programming and process fault diagnosis]. PLCs with appropriate algorithms were retrofitted to substations. Our power was maintained due to underground transmission lines from the substation to nearby transformers [both outside and inside the community].

FPL has improved the ability to respond to variations of voltage and current by placing smart meters in local transformers, using line sensors to indicate current and voltage. This implementation of “smart grid” technology enabled minimization of outages while improving identification of power loss locations.

FPL’s communications may need improvements, but, from my perspective, the $3 billion smart grid upgrade was well spent. Of course I speak as an engineer, not a journalist.