Valerie Colletti of Commonwealth Edison (ComEd) joins the AccuWeather Network on how the electric power grid is impacted by the upcoming heat wave and what steps are being taken to prepare.

Valerie Colletti, Senior Vice President of Distribution Operations at Commonwealth Edison (ComEd), detailed the company's comprehensive preparations for an anticipated intense heat wave. She explained that ComEd has implemented rigorous load forecasting, emergency response drills, proactive equipment inspections, and increased staffing to ensure the electric grid can handle increased demand, particularly from air conditioning use.

Colletti also noted that ComEd's investments in smart grid technology and collaboration with research institutions have significantly improved reliability and resilience. The company offers energy efficiency programs and financial assistance to help customers manage higher energy costs during extreme heat. ComEd continues to adapt its infrastructure and standards to address the growing frequency of severe weather events.

Impact of extreme heat to power grid

Joining us now is Valerie Colletti, Senior Vice President of Distribution Operations at ComEd, here to share how the electric grid is being ready for what may be the most intense heat wave Chicago has experienced in years, with air conditioners expected to run at full capacity and heat and accurate air temperatures soaring here, ComEd has the key guidance for staying safe and managing energy use wisely. Valerie, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you for having me, good morning. Good morning, how has ComEd prepared its infrastructure ahead of this prolonged dangerous heat wave? Well, fortunately, our grid is performing well, as expected, and we're not seeing any significant impacts from the weather, and trust me, that doesn't happen by accident. We really begin for preparing for weather like this well in advance. We conduct rigorous load forecasting along with emergency response drills, like we want to make sure we're ready for these high demand scenarios. We also make sure our supplies are very important. We have mobile trailers that we use to respond to outages, we make sure they're stocked, we make sure we have supply chain readiness, that we have all of our critical inventory. One thing that we also do to prepare that's really important is proactive inspections and repairs before summer even begins to make sure all of our equipment is in working order, so that when we see things like air conditioning load increases, that our system can respond and we can boost or stabilize that voltage across our feeders. Lastly, we've also increased our staffing. That's very important as well, to make sure we have our field workforce ready to go, that we're monitoring the system, and that any outages that do occur, we can restore our customers quickly and safely. So in summary, we're prepared. And what kind of strain does multi-day stretch of 90 to 100 degree heat, and also temperatures at night in the upper 70s and lower 80s place on the power grid? Well, when we're in this type of extreme heat, we're closely monitoring the system. We have to make sure all of our equipment is performing efficiently and reliably. And from our experience in these multi-day extreme heat events, we know to expect increased demand, electricity demand, really around more use of air conditioning and other cooling system. So again, we're monitoring the weather, we make sure we have adequate staffing, and we also implement heat stress prevention plans to maintain grid reliability, protect our infrastructure, and also our field workforce. What's your message to customers facing these extreme heat conditions? Well, first of all, we want our customers to know that we're here for them. Our investments that we've made in the grid have delivered clearly more reliability and more resiliency. Since really going back to 2011, our smart grid upgrades have helped avoid over 24.7 million outages and improved reliability by 57%. And that's a big deal, because we recognize that any outage has an impact on our customers, especially when we're in heat like this. So during the heat, again, we're monitoring the system around the clock, we're ready to respond to be there for our customers as needed. And we also know with this increased energy and usage due to the extreme heat, there may be customers that are concerned about their energy costs. We care about that as well. ComEd has award-winning energy efficiency programs and financial assistance options, and customers can get that at comed.com backslash bill support. That's important as well. And with intense heat becoming more frequent, how is ComEd adapting for long-term resilience? Well, we've been investing in our system for the last 10 to 15 years to make it more reliable, more resilient. We've put in advanced technology like distribution automation. You may hear those called smart switches, and they really help us reroute power in our trouble areas. Last summer, distribution automation avoided 986,000 customer interruptions. That's huge. We also collaborate with Argonne National Lab and the Electrical Power Research Institute, they're known as EPRI, to do models on mid-century climate scenarios and really identify resilient investments. So that's important as well. Lastly, some things we do to prepare is adapt our design standards to account for more frequent intense weather events like the heat wave that we're experiencing right now. Valerie Coletti, Senior Vice President of Distribution Operations at ComEd, thanks again for joining us. You are full of knowledge, and we appreciate all the information this morning. Great, thank you for having us. Stay safe, thank you.

Russia pummeled Kyiv with the largest drone attack of the war, injuring at least 23 people and damaging buildings across the capital only hours after U.S. President Donald Trump spoke with Russia's Vladimir Putin, officials said.

Kyiv

Ukraine Invasion

Russia hits Kyiv with largest drone attack after Trump-Putin call

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Jerusalem

More than 80 people killed in Gaza in one day

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Gilimanuk

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Manhattan

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Tehran

Iran Strikes

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