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A Bold New Dimension to Business: Introducing electrical service and maintenance version 2.0

By Andrew McCoy and Fred Sargent | Aug 14, 2023
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It’s time to roll out Version 2.0 of the electrical service and maintenance business model. 

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It’s time to roll out Version 2.0 of the electrical service and maintenance business model. Don’t worry if you do not recall hearing of Version 2.0. You didn’t miss anything; we invented it as we were writing this column.

Version 2.0 contains all of the elements of traditional service and maintenance but with a radically new component: the service contractor’s guarantee to maintain electrical power for certain systems in customers’ facilities, no matter what.

Version 2.0 will protect and shield those selected systems against power outages from storm damage, flood waters, equipment malfunctions, cyberattacks, physical sabotage or other disruptions as fundamental as a downed utility pole struck in an automobile accident.

With Version 2.0, a service and maintenance organization will, in essence, install and maintain equipment that will wrap its customers’ systems in the protection of a private or shared microgrid. Thus, Version 2.0 will require some heavy-duty collaboration between a few companies, which we propose should be led by the electrical service and maintenance contractor involved.

Let’s stop here to examine the why, how and what of Version 2.0.

Why we need Version 2.0

It is a direct result of the movement toward the electrification of everything, which still has a long way to go. But the world is overwhelmingly dependent on electrical power anyhow. We have a while before electricity completely overtakes all other sources of power, but it’s time to take steps to protect against outages of any scale.

Nearly six decades ago, in the midst of the Northeast Blackout of 1965, the United States woke up to the havoc a widespread electrical outage could produce. But back then, despite the blackout, telephones and cars still worked. 

As the electrification of everything approaches its apogee, however, the story will be quite different. The stakes will be progressively so much higher with each blackout, regardless of what may have caused them.

How it will make a difference

Version 2.0 will broaden coverage in places currently unprotected in the event of a utility power outage. By code and statute, many kinds of facilities have emergency and standby power systems. But the vast majority of homes and buildings do not.

Version 2.0 represents the democratization of standby and emergency power.

What Version 2.0 will incorporate

To achieve the objectives of Version 2.0, electrical service and maintenance contractors must take the lead in a collaboration of equipment providers and other contractors to put in place the required infrastructure. They are the logical candidates to do so.

There is a historic precedent for Version 2.0 that goes back to the earliest days of the original U.S. electrification efforts.

In the spring of 1882, financier J.P. Morgan, an early and enthusiastic investor in Thomas Edison’s ventures, personally came up with a creative plan to promote Edison’s incandescent light bulb. Since he was already engaged in renovating his New York City mansion, Morgan decided he would go a step further to make it the first house in America to be illuminated entirely by electricity. 

Edison dispatched a crew to excavate a cellar inside the horse stable at the property’s rear. There they would situate a coal-fired boiler to power two generators that would support the nearly 350 electric lights needed to fully illuminate the house. 

Once all the equipment was in place, every afternoon at around 3 p.m., an engineer would arrive to fire up the smelly, smoky boiler and the noisy, rattling generators. The system was intended to keep the lights on until about 11 p.m., although sometimes late-night partygoers would have to scramble for candles when festivities ran longer than the generators did.

So, not just installation, service and maintenance, but on-site generation also had a remarkable precedent in this premier residential electrical job.

Today, while everyone dreams of higher capacity batteries and more efficient solar panels, some totally unforeseen breakthroughs may burst onto the scene and make the objectives of Version 2.0 more attainable than we might now possibly imagine. But with or without a magical solution, it is imperative that electrical service and maintenance contractors seize the leadership of the collaborative effort required to make Version 2.0 a reality.

Beyond keeping the lights on in customer’s facilities, the greater promise of Version 2.0 might be keeping the lights on in electrical contractors’ offices as tectonic shifts underlying the marketplace constantly reshape the landscape of the industry.

stock.adobe.com / FotoGraphic

About The Author

MCCOY is Beliveau professor in the Dept. of Building Construction, associate director of the Myers-Lawson School of Construction and director of the Virginia Center for Housing Research at Virginia Tech. Contact him at [email protected].

 

SARGENT heads Great Service Forums℠, which offers networking opportunities, business development and professional education to its membership of service-oriented contractors. Email him at [email protected].

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