PUBLIC UTILITIES ADVISORY BOARD AGENDA ITEM
ACTION REQUESTED:
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Receive Electric Operations Exceptions Reporting
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DEPARTMENT: Electric Utility
SUBMITTED BY: Brian Groth, Director of Electric Utilities
BOARD/COMMISSION REVIEW:
N/A
BACKGROUND:
The purpose of this memorandum is to provide the Public Utility Advisory Board (PUAB) with a status update on Electric Operations Exceptions impacting the City of Naperville’s Electric Utility.
DISCUSSION:
1. Fiber to the Home Installations
Naperville is experiencing a surge in fiber to the home installations as three contractors expand their offerings into the community. To manage the increased volume of utility locates and maintain compliance with state and federal laws, Electric Utility Operations evaluated several strategies to accommodate the considerable increase in JULIE locate requests with existing staff, including:
• Increasing internal staffing
• Outsourcing locates
• Allowing fiber companies to perform their own locates
Naperville staff are currently working on a legal framework that allows a fiber company to perform their own locates and in exchange holds the fiber company fully liable for infrastructure damage. The City will have the right to terminate the agreement for any reason including an increase in electric facility hits.
To increase transparency in outage reporting the Electric Utility is refining its reporting of outage metrics to specifically track third party strikes.
2. Transformer Movement (30XA/10XA/75 Spare)
Approximately 17 months ago, a critical substation transformer(30XA) failed because of a thorough fault. This fault caused an irreparable short on one of the windings leaving two replacement options direct replacement or utilization of a system spare transformer.
Due to the lead time of new transformers, the Utility determined that utilization of a system spare, and the movement of a second transformer, would return the system to normal configuration quicker. The Utility worked with procurement over the course of a year, to procure the removal of the failed transformer, movement of two transformers and ultimately the replacement for the spare transformer.
During the week of March 30th, the utility and its contractor moved in-service sister transformer(10XA) to replace the failed transformer (30XA) and then moved our spare transformer (75XS) to retro fit for the vacancy. The contractors finished moving the two transformers on March 31st and we plan to have both transformers online by the end of April.
The vendor anticipates it will take Naperville 3 years to receive the replacement transformer.
3. GIS Upgrade Project Status
The City's Geographical Information System (GIS) houses information related to a wide variety of assets and owned facilities and has gone through several iterations and upgrades over the years. For GIS and mapping of its Distribution Network, the Electric Utility ("Utility") began using ArcInfo and ArcFM in the 1990s. A migration to the ArcGIS/ArcFM 8.x geodatabase system was performed in 2002.
Since that time, ArcFM module extensions have been added that allow the Utility to perform electrical system designs, track underground conduit and fiber usage, as well as perform outage management functions. The ESRI-based core product, on which all of these software packages rely, will reach vendor-mandated end-of-life in March 2028, requiring the Utility to migrate its data and integrations to ESRI's next generation of GIS, called the Utility Network.
As the system of record for all the Utility's infrastructure data, the GIS supports numerous key business processes and systems so these integrations must be maintained. In January of 2026, the Naperville City Council approved a contract with RAMTeCH Solutions to migrate to the Utility Network.
Over the next year and a half, the workstreams will include System Architecture Design, GIS Build, Integration Build, Engineering Design Software implementation, Data Modeling and Migration (with two mock migrations prior to full, production migration), Organizational Change Management and Training, and rollout support.
The result of the project will be a fully functioning Utility Network GIS in production for EU’s Electric and Fiber datasets, for staff who edit data as well as read-only users. One of the most important aspects of this project is that it will ensure EU’s GIS is compliant with the City’s version of ArcGIS Enterprise, and its datasets will remain viewable by other departments, while Utility staff can continue to view data sets maintained by those departments. The Utility’s transmission and distribution engineering staff will also be able to continue with GIS-based design, using a state-of-the-art design tool.
The anticipated completion date of the project is March 1, 2028.
4. SCADA/OMS/DERMS Upgrade and Implementation
The Electric Utility (Utility) first implemented its Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system in the early 1990s to enable real-time monitoring and control of substation assets and distribution automation (DA) switchgear. This deployment enhanced grid visibility, which improved operational efficiency and reduced outage durations. Since the initial implementation, the Utility has periodically performed software and hardware refreshes to maintain system reliability and performance, with the most recent major upgrade completed in 2020.
Currently, the Utility is performing a SCADA communications upgrade project. The goal is to modernize field hardware and transition to industry-standard communication protocols. By doing this, the field hardware systems and control room software systems will be vendor agnostic and systems can be independently upgraded. At the completion of this project, the Utility will be upgrading its SCADA system to take advantage of new technologies now available in the market.
The Utility procured its existing Geographic Information System (GIS) centric Outage Management System (OMS) in 2021. The goal of this software procurement was to improve operational efficiencies by monitoring specific metrics, dispatching Utility crews, providing greater safety for crews by tracking isolation procedures, and providing greater transparency in operations to other municipal departments. Shortly after the deployment was completed, and prior to rolling the software out to other departments, the Utility learned that the GIS foundation would need to be upgraded in the coming years, and this would render the current OMS system inoperable.
Through the deployment of the GIS-centric OMS system, the Utility was able to identify operational efficiencies, and the deployment of this software has positioned the City well for potential changes to the Call Center structure in the coming years.
The Utility has seen a significant increase in its distributed energy resources over the last decade. Currently, Naperville has the second-highest number of electric vehicles (EVs) in Illinois, with 6,678 EVs, which has more than doubled since 2023. In addition, Naperville has 28 battery installations providing 238kW of total capacity and over 1,201 solar installations with a total installed capacity of 11,963kW across its system. Solar resources have grown exponentially over the last five years and that trend is expected to continue given recent changes to the City’s net metering policy, which has removed restrictions on the capacity of installations.
Current grid technologies are primarily equipped to manage continuous generation and one-way (to the customer) load flow. Distributed Energy Resources (DER’s) such as solar, batteries and other generation can provide challenges around hidden load, back feeds, and voltage issues. Accurate visibility into real-time grid operation is essential for safely and efficiently managing the Distribution network.
In conjunction with the SCADA system migration, the Utility is seeking to upgrade its existing Outage Management System (OMS) and deploy a Distributed Energy Management System (DERMS).
This project was awarded in December of 2025 and currently the SCADA portion of the project is expected to be completed in 2027 with GIS and DERMS following.
5. Tollway Substation Work
The Naperville Electric Utility (Utility) Tollway Substation has experienced several 34.5kV bus flashovers in the past few years. These flashovers cause extended outages to critical industrial and commercial customers located along the I-88 corridor. The primary cause of these failures has been determined to be related to salt contamination from the adjacent I-88 tollway. Regular cleaning of the bus has proven ineffective at preventing the flashovers and requires labor intensive periodic maintenance. By relocating the 34.5kV bus indoors, the Utility will eliminate the primary cause of failures, improve reliability and reduce maintenance efforts.
In addition, one of the transformers connected to the 34.5kV bus at the Tollway substation does not allow for voltage regulation. By retiring this transformer and installing a new transformer at the substation the Utility can gain operational flexibility.
Finally, two out of the five 138kV breakers at the Tollway substation have reached end of life. Both breakers are slated for replacement, allowing the Utility to gain much needed spare parts and initiate the process of phasing out this style of circuit breakers from the system.
The engineering for this project has commenced by Sargent & Lundy and two new transformers have been placed on order to support the upgrades. The Utility received one bid in its attempt to secure a vendor to build the control house and the price received was several times the engineers’ estimate. While other parts of the project continue through engineering and procurement the control house will be rebid but this may cause delays with the anticipated Q2 2028 online date.
6. Transmission Pole Painting Warranty Work
The City owns and maintains a total of 117 steel transmission poles on 75th Street, Route 59, and a line that runs from the Westside Substation (near the train station on Route 59) all the way west and along I88 to the Tollway Substation. In 2022, a utility pole painting contractor was contracted to repaint 24 poles, most of them on the line that runs along I88.
In 2023, Electric Utility inspections identified warranty issues and the vendor returned in 2024 to perform the maintenance work. Our 2025 annual inspection using a drone resulted in finding defects on all 24 of the poles the vendor painted, including complete degradation of what was just done in 2024.
Electric Utility, Legal, and Purchasing have obtained a commitment from the vendor to return and perform warranty work. The vendor originally scheduled to return in March; however, field conditions and permit approvals were not conducive. The vendor has proposed returning later in 2026 to repaint the 24 poles.
7. City Dispatch/Finance Call Center Changes
City staff has completed an in-depth review of the scope of services that the Finance Call Center provides to internal and external customers. This review also included hours of operation and staffing of those services. Based on call volume and type of request for service, outside of 24/7 call taking for power outages, managing Julie locates and calling in employees for emergency situations (snow, water main breaks, storm damage), staff does not believe the call center needs to be staffed 24/7.
Staff is working through the three main items which require 24x7 coverage with the current focus being on providing customers with timely, up-to-date information on power outages. As a result of this evaluation, Finance, Electric, Communications and CMO staff are recommending to contract with a firm to provide 24/7 customer support services for outage and power quality issues in the electric utility. The outsourced contact center would receive calls/inquiries for everything from a single home outage to outages affecting thousands of customers.
Staff expects that a council agenda item will be proposed later this month along with slight modifications to the Utility Customer Bill of Rights to allow for this third-party use of utility data.
8. Naperville Received APPA’s Diamond Level 2026 Reliable Public Power Provider designation and 2025 Safety Award
APPA’s RP3 program is based on industry-recognized leading practices in four important disciplines:
• Reliability
• Safety
• Workforce Development
• System Improvement
An RP3 designation is a sign of a utility's dedication to operating an efficient, safe, and reliable distribution system. Being recognized by the RP3 program demonstrates to community leaders, governing board members, suppliers, and service providers a utility’s commitment to its employees, customers, and community. Currently, 181 of the nation's more than 2,000 public power utilities hold an RP3 designation.
<https://www.publicpower.org/rp3-designated-utilities>
The American Public Power Association’s Safety Award of Excellence recognizes utilities with low incident rates and the overall state of their safety programs and culture each year. In 2025, 240 utilities were recognized for safe operating practices, Utilities can earn diamond, platinum, and gold-level designations in groups based on their total worker hours of exposure.
<https://www.publicpower.org/about/members/safety/safety-award-winners>
Naperville Electric Utility participated in the 2026 APPA Public Power Line Workers Rodeo:
The American Public Power Association’s Public Power Line Workers Rodeo is the foremost showcase of public power line worker skill and knowledge. At the Rodeo, journeyman and apprentice line workers compete for professional recognition, attend training courses, and practice essential skills in a safe environment. Furthermore, attendees have a unique opportunity to connect with and learn from the nationwide community of line worker professionals.
<https://www.publicpower.org/public-power-lineworkers-rodeo/competition>
RECOMMENDATION:
Receive the Operations Exceptions Reporting Update.