Cairo Vanegas, the superintendent Of Electric T&D for Fort Pierce Utilities Authority will speaking at the Storm Outage Restoration Congress on December 11th and 12th in Atlanta, Georgia on "Examining Methods For Reducing Damage To Overhead Infrastructure Through Armless Construction And Other Design Criteria". Cairo answered a few questions about the event.

Q: Which session are you most looking forward to at the Storm Outage Restoration Congress?

A: The session I am looking forward to the most is integrating the advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) environment with outage management systems. Currently, some companies throughout the U.S. have completed a deployment of AMI systems. I am interested in learning what these companies have learned from their experience thus far and if their expectations have been fulfilled—particularly when it comes to performance of the system during storm events.

Q: There is a broad range of utilities speaking at the congress, from the likes of Pacific Gas & Electric and DTE Energy Company to smaller municipalities such as the City Of Griffin. What are you eager to learn at the event?

A: I am eager to learn about other's experience in integrating AMI systems with an outage management system. These integrations are very complex and labor intensive and I have heard in some cases that a system installed does not deliver what the vendor promised. In the future, our utility will be evaluating these systems and I would benefit greatly by understanding key lessons learned. For more information, visit www.storm-outage-restoration-technology-2013.com

Electricity Today Magazine will be speaking with Mr. Vanegas in an exclusive interview in the November/December 2013 issue, which will be available on our website in mid-December.