Case Study
Florida Power & Light
In April, 2009 when Florida Power & Light
(FPL) and Miami-Dade County executives
were joined on a Miami stage with dignitaries
from Cisco, GE and Silver Springs Networks
to announce the biggest and most advanced
Smart Grid project yet—a $200-million Smart
Grid Initiative codenamed Energy Smart
Miami that will install smart meters in one million homes and buildings in Dade county, with
FPL planning to spend an additional $500 million on bringing
smart meters to its entire customer base—TBW Solutions
was nowhere to be seen. But
behind the scenes it was a
different matter. For over two
years, TBW Solutions had
participated in a series of pilots
that proved the feasibility of
the project and, at the time,
was in negotiation to provide the work force to
change out over half of the approximately 4.5
million meters. It wasn't an unusual occurrence.
As the "muscle" behind many of today's largest
Smart Grid projects, TBW Solutions is used to
working behind the scenes. But over the next
several months, TBW's contribution became
more and more apparent as it staffed up the
project and began the roll-out in Broward and
Dade counties—two of Florida’s most populous counties. This also was not unusual.
This approach was evident in South Florida as
TBW staffed up from a few experienced
technicians brought in temporarily to get the
project started to over 50 full time field technicians in a little over 3 months. Tim continues
with his story. "We placed employment ads in
select local newspapers and utilized community outreach organizations, church groups, job
training centers and state unemployment
offices to identify potential
candidates." The high visibility
strategy worked and TBW was
inundated with applicants for
the green collar jobs.
From the first group of applicants, TBW selected a few
individuals and put them
through an intensive and rigorous multi-week training program involving technical, safety and life skills
classroom training, field training and job
shadowing. Each recruit was also subjected to
intensive quality and safety audits and
retraining where necessary.
The success of the program is self-evident. In a
little over three months, TBW Solutions has
successfully changed out over 100,000 meters
utilizing a high-caliber local project work force
that reflects the diverse make-up of the communities in which it is working. "It's been a
huge success," stated Tim, "We were able to
recruit, hire, train and develop a great project
"We have a very simple philosophy," stated
Tim Strickland, TBW Solutions Vice President team. Many of the individuals we hired
through no fault of their own were either
Energy Services. "Recruit and hire locally.
This means that after the dignitaries have left unemployed or chronically under-employed.
It’s good to get a project off to a smooth start,
we go from working behind the scenes to
but its even better knowing that the individuals
taking a highly visible position within the
community. We utilize every resource possible working on our project are members of the
to identify high potential individuals from the local community. Creating high paying green
jobs in the local community—now that truly is
community who have the attitude, aptitude,
a great feeling."
and desire to be part of our team."
TBW Solutions Case Study FastFacts™
FPL is the largest investor-owned electric utility in Florida, serving approximately 4.5 million
customer accounts. It is one of the largest electric utilities in the United States and ranks #1
among electric utilities nationwide in energy-efficiency programs.
TBW is a leading provider of Smart Meter technology deployments and the only one that is
also a national master contractor to North America’s three largest wireless carriers.
“The skill and professionalism exhibited by your team during the pilot phase of our
Smart Grid Initiative were instrumental in the award of the overall project.”
FPL
2555 Marconi Drive, Suite 300
Alpharetta, GA 30005
770-521-8281
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