BGE BGE Emergency Response & Outage Management 1 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: What is BGE's first priority when responding to a reported downed power line?
- Restore power to affected customers as quickly as possible
- Secure the scene and ensure public safety before any restoration work begins (Correct answer)
- Notify the billing department of the estimated outage duration
- Contact the customer to verify the location of the downed line
Correct answer: Secure the scene and ensure public safety before any restoration work begins
Public safety is always the top priority at a downed line incident; the area must be secured and bystanders kept away before restoration begins.
Question 2: Which BGE system is primarily used to aggregate customer outage reports and model fault locations?
- SCADA
- Outage Management System (OMS) (Correct answer)
- Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping only
- Customer billing database
Correct answer: Outage Management System (OMS)
BGE's Outage Management System aggregates customer calls and smart meter signals to model outage boundaries and efficiently dispatch repair crews.
Question 3: During a major storm event, what does BGE's use of Incident Command Structure (ICS) provide?
- A flat management approach where all workers report directly to the CEO
- A standardized hierarchical framework for coordinating large-scale emergency response (Correct answer)
- A billing adjustment system for storm-affected customers
- Automatic power rerouting without human intervention
Correct answer: A standardized hierarchical framework for coordinating large-scale emergency response
ICS provides a scalable, standardized command structure enabling BGE to coordinate hundreds of field crews, mutual aid workers, and support staff during major outage events.
Question 4: What is 'mutual aid' in the context of a BGE major storm response?
- Customers sharing portable generators with their neighbors
- Pre-arranged assistance from crews of other utilities during large-scale outage events (Correct answer)
- Financial assistance provided to low-income customers after storms
- Automatic switching between transmission grid segments
Correct answer: Pre-arranged assistance from crews of other utilities during large-scale outage events
Mutual aid refers to pre-arranged agreements between utilities to share skilled crews and equipment when a storm overwhelms any single utility's own workforce.
Question 5: What is the standard BGE protocol when a field crew arrives at a reported gas leak?
- Immediately close the nearest main valve and begin repairs
- Approach cautiously, eliminate ignition sources, evacuate the immediate area, and summon BGE gas emergency response (Correct answer)
- Knock on doors to ask residents whether they smell gas before investigating further
- Wait for police to arrive and clear the scene before taking any action
Correct answer: Approach cautiously, eliminate ignition sources, evacuate the immediate area, and summon BGE gas emergency response
Gas leak protocol requires eliminating ignition sources, evacuating nearby buildings, and dispatching the specialized gas emergency team before any repair attempt.
Question 6: After restoring power following an outage, how does BGE confirm restoration without dispatching a crew to every individual address?
- By conducting customer callback surveys
- Through smart meter 'power restored' pings transmitted automatically over the AMI network (Correct answer)
- By having a supervisor perform a visual drive-by inspection
- By sending automated robocalls to customer landlines
Correct answer: Through smart meter 'power restored' pings transmitted automatically over the AMI network
BGE's AMI smart meters send automatic power-on signals over the RF mesh network, allowing the Outage Management System to confirm restoration remotely and at scale.
BGE BGE Emergency Response & Outage Management 1
What is BGE's first priority when responding to a reported downed power line?