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The man with the power plan Galit Rodan Northern News Services Published Friday, March 23, 2012
It is 10 a.m. but it could be any hour of any day in the control room of the NWT Power Corporation's Jackfish Power Plant. The semi-darkness only serves to enhance the glow of seven Dell computer monitors. There are eight screens in all, stacked in two square modules of four computers each. The dark screen, the one that is turned off, monitors lightning strikes - so anomalous during Northern winters as to render them essentially a non-issue. System operator John Vanthull likes the room this way. It helps him focus on the task at hand, he says, and it is easy to imagine how focus can become an issue when your job requires that you sit in a comfortable leather chair to watch computer screens for 12 hours at a time. During his hours on shift, Vanthull is at the helm of Yellowknife's power supply. A program called SCADA - System Control and Data Acquisition - enables him to essentially observe Yellowknife's entire generation and distribution system on one screen and ensure that everything is operating smoothly. To the untrained eye, the red and blue lines of the diagram look like a road map of a poorly-planned town, with concentric rectangles and abundant dead ends. Green numbers and red squares further complicate the matter, though Vanthull swears it all makes perfect sense. System operators typically get between six to eight months of training before they are left unsupervised but the company was short-handed when Vanthull started and he was "thrown into the fire," as he put it, with only three or four months of training. He was apprehensive during his first few shifts alone, he admits, but "as time goes on you get used to it and become a little bit more comfortable," he said. Vanthull has been with power corp. for 22 years, including four years in his current position. He and his five fellow system operators are Yellowknife's first line of defence when something goes wrong - a lightning strike, an errant squirrel or wayward helicopter, for example. These rare occurrences furnish Vanthull with some of his favourite and least favourite moments on the job, his least favourite being when you-know-what "hits the proverbial fan." These are the minutes just after the power blows somewhere or other and the controlled mayhem begins. Vanthull has to take stock of the situation, to figure out what has happened and how to fix it. At the same time, calls from understandably concerned customers come flooding in. There is no secretary to deal with this. During the day, another system operator is on the other side of the room working on permits for maintenance work and can help field calls. But after 5 p.m., Vanthull is alone. This seems to be when most power outages happen, he said, and the company's emergency line rings at his desk. "We're aware of the situation and we're working on it right now," he will say. The more time he spends on the phone, the longer it takes to solve the problem. It is a balancing act. But when the dust settles Vanthull is at his most satisfied. "Working through your problems, especially big ones, can be pretty satisfying in the end when you know that everybody's got their lights on and hopefully they're happy and not freezing," he said. Vanthull arrived at work at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday and won't leave until 7:30 p.m., when another system operator will relieve him until the following morning. He has characteristically skipped breakfast in favour of an impressively tall cup of coffee and will eat lunch at his desk. If he feels particularly antsy he may use the treadmill around the corner, but for the most part he stays at his desk, where - 98 per cent of the time, he estimates - the inaction is.
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