Technology is only as good as the experience it provides to people who use it, and it’s critical to deliver the right experiences to the hard-working operators in energy utilities’ control rooms.

These people regularly work 10- to 12-hour shifts. If they are helping with a power restoration effort after an ice storm, for example, these operators may need to work several shifts in a row.

Their work is mission-critical. Without power, our hospitals and homes don’t work very well. So, it’s crucial that operators have the right technology to allow them to take care of our families.

Yet control rooms are frequently designed as if they are general office spaces for average office employees rather than for operators who work at organizations that are under heavy scrutiny by government agencies and who spend sustained, long-cycle shifts on mission-critical work.

That can stand in the way of optimal efficiency and compliance, create operator fatigue – potentially leading to errors and adversely impact utility efforts to attract and retain top talent.

The operator experience is more complex and stressful than ever

Making control rooms extremely effective for the people who work in these spaces has never been more critical because the operator experience is more complex and stressful than ever.

Operators already do crisis management. Now they must also work with and understand an overwhelming number of applications. And the utilities that operators work for can incur hefty fines if they don’t comply with North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) critical infrastructure protection (CIP) standards, which adds pressure to this already high-pressure job.

People want to contribute. But clutter, suboptimal lighting and video, excessive noise and a flood of applications and data are distracting and make it harder for operators to be successful.

The new generation of operators expects next-generation technology

Thirty percent of the energy workforce is under 30 years old, while the national average is 22%, according to the U.S. Department of Energy’s 2023 U.S. Energy and Employment Report. Only 17% of the energy workforce is older than 55, much lower than the 24% national average.

Outdated technology and poor experiences are especially problematic for the new generation of operators, who were raised on mobile devices that put convenience at their fingertips. So, utilities now have to make their control rooms attractive to the next generation of talent. If a new operator sees a mosaic tile board in a control room, it can be a big turnoff. The operator might think that they could work anywhere else and see more advanced technology than this.

Next-generation technology provides better experiences. It can also serve as a recruitment tool.

Outdated technology and poor experiences can lead to operator turnover

New data from Barco indicates that the less productive operators feel, the more likely they are to switch jobs. For people who rate their productivity as poor, the likeliness that they will soon switch jobs rises to a staggering 81%. If the operator experience is poor, that probably means the control experience is poor. That can create problems both in hiring and keeping operators.

Operator churn is extremely problematic because it can take a year for these individuals to get enough training and experience to become really productive. The training process for operators, as PSE&G principal engineer Ahmed Mousa explains, “is comprehensive and covers hundreds of specifications/procedures that are vital to the operation. ECCOs are like the supercomputer located in the U.S. Patent Office, where during emergencies, we are expected to dig deep in our brains and recall from our memories certain specifications and directions.”

Plus, control room operators are well-compensated employees. Why stop short of investing in the environments in which they work? Make it a great experience so they don’t want to leave.

For optimal experiences and outcomes, take a people-first approach to design

So, how can utilities and their partners make control rooms extremely effective for operators?

Approach the control room like a space shuttle mission – build everything around the astronaut.

One approach to make that happen is to start by talking with operators to understand their real challenges.

Ensure that all the information operators need to do their jobs effectively is easily available to them. Make things simple and easy to use. Think about how sound and lighting impact their experience and what you can do to improve on those fronts. Embrace systems and technology that are flexible so they can easily adapt over time as new applications and methodologies arise.

Turn down the volume on distracting, unnecessary noise

One of the top complaints in control rooms is that these environments are too loud.

When movements or repetitive dinging from HVAC units, for example, create a lot of noise, it can be very distracting to operators. It can also make it hard to understand communications coming from outside the control room. In a mission-critical environment like a control room, those communications can be key to enabling operators to understand the mission and how they will serve to restore power and save lives. So, getting overall room acoustics right is vital.

Work with partners that have deep experience in design environments with quality sound.

Reduce fatigue by adjusting lighting, ensuring video is color balanced

Like astronauts, control room operators work in 24/7 operations. Typically, operators rotate shifts, working during the day and then, over time, taking the night shift. That can be a tough transition, making it challenging for control room operators to stay awake and alert.

Changing the color of lighting helps operators adjust from day shifts to night shifts by affecting circadian rhythms and impacting the production and release of melatonin, which plays a role in sleep. Lighting adjustments can also help increase operator alertness throughout their shifts.

Lighting is also a vital consideration in designing video walls within control rooms. Desktop displays are typically brighter than video walls. If operators’ eyes constantly have to change aperture as they move from desktop displays to video walls, it can lead to repetitive eye strain, migraines and, potentially, time away from work. Partners with deep experience in IT for mission-critical environments can help utilities understand and avoid such problems by ensuring the light coming off of video walls is commensurate with the lighting at operators’ desktops.

Color balancing is also critical. You may have noticed LCD arrays at airports or retail malls that look like a patchwork quilt of colors. That’s because those displays haven’t been color balanced. When video walls in the control room aren’t color balanced, it can lead to operator eye fatigue. Some video walls will color balance automatically. But you can’t just take any monitor that you might put in a conference room and expect it to be a strong performer inside a control room. You need to select and configure technology to make it sustainable for control room use.

Eliminate distracting desktop clutter and increase operator visibility

Dominion Energy South Carolina was recently working to optimize its control room to accommodate more operators to manage the company’s growing number of solar generators. In the process, it learned of new technology that it thought would add value, so it decided to do a full control room upgrade. One goal was to reduce the clutter that its operators were facing.

People tend to be more comfortable sitting at their desks after they clean off their desks, and clutter-free desks can help to prevent operator error. Imagine an operator had six or 10 keyboards on their desk and something was happening on the grid that they needed to respond to. Lee Xanthakos, director of electric transmission planning and operations at Dominion Energy South Carolina, explained that when operators repeatedly have to figure out what keyboard and computer they need in any given situation, it creates mental fatigue over time.

One global technology solutions provider based in Kenilwort, N.J. worked closely with Dominion to reduce the number of monitors on operator desks by replacing eight to 10 20-inch desktop monitors with four much larger monitors. The provider also reduced the clutter on operator desks by decreasing the number of keyboards and computer mice to a manageable level. Reducing distracting clutter has resulted in better operator experiences.

Providing better, clearer visuals also helps operators to do their jobs as well as possible. So, Dominion also elected to replace its existing wall monitor with a 4K wall. The high-level definition makes the grid map on the wall monitor clearer for Dominion’s operators to see.

“We have around 3,300 miles of transmission line, over 400 substations, dozens of generators,” Xanthakos said. “The tools that [the N.J.-based solutions provider] has provided allow us to have all of that up at one time and see the status of all of it. We can see what lines are in service, what lines are out of service, what generators are producing power and which ones are not. By having that large visual, we can spot developing problems and resolve them before there actually is an outage.”

Remove operator guesswork by using data to tell the story

Control rooms are typically built to run for seven to 12 years. Over that period, a lot of applications come into these environments. Perhaps new leadership comes in with different ideas on which applications are needed to monitor the organization’s systems. Then the next regime comes in or a new form of power and facility enters the equation and changes things.

Constantly changing applications means that operators have to continually learn new applications. Rather than putting all the onus on operators, utilities can leverage assistive intelligence. Running software that analyzes, correlates and learns from data from disparate applications can help operators understand and act on situations faster and more intelligently.

With seamless integration, you can also trigger red lights on the desktop or in the room, or audible alerts, so that operators know there is a problem. Seamless integration in control room design can also display on the video wall information that’s germane to that particular situation.

Use secure visualization to operate on a need-to-know basis

Not everybody needs access to all of an organization’s data all the time to get the job done. With secure visualization, electric utilities can write roles and permissions into their visual platforms so that operators see precisely what they need to do their jobs and nothing more.

Roles and permissions also enable utilities to securely push out visual information to a website so field technicians can see what’s happening from the control room perspective. Plus, roles and permissions prevent information from being shared with those who shouldn’t have access to it.

Patching updates, publishing vulnerabilities and roles and permissions are also all extremely important for organizations that exist in environments that are governed by NERC CIP.

Select a proven partner to allow for continuous improvement

AV-based solutions that are very rigid in their design and can’t change as control room applications and operator requirements change over time just don’t work in today’s world.

Mission-critical operations today need control rooms that are designed to be flexible and secure and that remove obstacles and deliver optimal experiences for their hard-working operators.

To ensure your control room works best for you and your operators, seek technology partners with deep experience designing mission-critical environments, take the time to fully understand your needs, help you identify the right solutions for your unique requirements, ensure your environment is secure and the technology you’re using is NERC CIP compliant and is committed to supporting you and continually improving your experience.