E-Distribuție: a team aiming high

In 2018, the E-Distribuție team won the great trophy in the power distribution category, for which 111 valuable electricians worked hard, in Oradea, taking theoretical and practical tests.

The team that represented us in the national phase consisted of 12 electricians, selected following an internal contest (Iulică Cojocaru, Florin Valeriu Dan, Cristian Iordache, Gheorghe Lupea, Florin Mateevici, Nicolai Mercas, Nicolae Munteanu, Iulian Niculae, Cornel Savu, Daniel Scriosteanu, Iulian Stoian, Jean Stroie), and 5 technical committee engineers (Jean Anastasiu, Liviu Baiceanu, Stanel Custura, Virgiliu Octavian Rosca, Cornel Talos).

After winning the national trophy, the entire team went to Rome, at the end of last year, at the invitation of their colleagues from E-Distribuzione Italy, part of Enel Group. Each of the participants has a story, and this time we discussed with one of the electricians at Muntenia, to get a feel of his views on the competition, from the broader context of his line of work.

The story of Florin Valeriu Dan – the desire for improvement

Florin Valeriu Dan is a Telecontrol and Installations Verification electrician at E-Distribuție Muntenia, working in the Giurgiu - Ilfov area. He is always working in the field and managing situations that cannot be managed remotely, by telecontrol. He prefers being active, a desk job would not bring the same satisfaction to him.

„Somebody has to do some actual work. I don’t know how many young people accept this nowadays - having the responsibility of work well done. Let’s consider an example: I have to go and look for a problem with an installation. I have the internal satisfaction that I found it, I solved it.”

When he is appointed chief of works, Mr. Dan coordinates his co-workers. For special works, he prepares even in his own free time. “If I know I have a more special work scheduled for the following day, I often take the schematics with me at home, to study them, so I can be prepared.” How does he study them, you may ask? On the living room TV, which is the only use he gives it, as a computer monitor. In order to work on an installation, you must have an overall view of it, there are thousands of wires, all recorded in schematics that must be followed. “If you can’t read each dot, each line, you will stumble somewhere and you won’t know what to do.” Because he is passionate and has a high sense of responsibility, he likes doing it, and even if it’s his personal time, he doesn’t see it as overtime, because no one makes him prepare at home.

This doesn’t mean he doesn’t value his free time. On the contrary, he is satisfied with the fact that his work day starts early in the morning and ends at 15:30, so he has time left for walks, for going out with his close friends. “There’s more to life than just work, you also need to have fun.” Even when he retires, although it’s going to be a while until he does, he imagines that, just like his parents, he will keep his mind busy with all sorts of projects. “I don’t see myself retiring and just sitting still, with a beer and a newspaper in front of me!”

When it comes to overtime and he has to stay after the working hours, he is always paid for it. This is something he appreciates about the company, along with the fact that his superiors acknowledge his efforts. “I would say there’s an extraordinary harmony from me to the chief engineer.” I’ve never felt any pressure from my superiors, but rather encouragements, for example, in the Electrician’s Trophy competition where, if they did not succeed in winning one year, they proposed to try again the following year.

Still, the fear of not performing well in the competition, of letting down the engineers who are part of the evaluation committee is one of the reasons that prevents many of my peers from entering. Florin-Valeriu Dan would like to see new electricians in the contest and he is trying to motivate them. In addition to the financial bonus, offered by the company for the regional phase and then for the E-Distribuție phase, and to the prize for the country phase offered by the organiser, it is also important to test your own skills in a competition.

Florin-Valeriu Dan sees the contest as an occasion to improve and validate his skills. There is no need to be informed that the registrations are coming up, he knows. He has been participating for may years and he hasn’t always gotten to the national phase - this is the key, he wants to overcome his own limits. If he passes the theoretical test, he comes up among the first 3 in the region (Muntenia/Dobrogea/Banat) and he moves forth to the practical test on E-Distribuție, and if he is one of the first 3 here as well, he goes to the country phase.

When he goes away for the competition he focuses on his studying, he doesn’t take the time to go out. However, he has made friends among the electricians in Dobrogea and Banat, they call one another on holidays, they talk every once in a while in their own electricians’ language about work stuff. It was more difficult, during the trip to Rome, to talk to his Italian peers, but he managed. And, being the ambitious person that he is, he now has a new goal: to learn English or Italian.

O global team

During the trip to Rome, the group discussed with their Italian peers about the challenges of power grids in Romania, they visited the main offices of the company, with special spaces dedicated to monitoring the grids and innovation, they visited the beautiful city and the Vatican.

“Electricians and engineers alike, we all appreciated the visit to the main offices in Rome and the presentations made in the monitoring room and in the Innovation Space. We were happy to meet Livio Gallo, the global director of E-Distribuție and discuss with the management of E-Distribuție Muntenia and our colleagues in Human Resources - we actually felt like we were part of a great Enel team”, Virgiliu Roșca, Specialist Engineer of the High Voltage Centre, E-Distribuție Muntenia

The distribution companies within Enel Group are the most performing in the country, according to the SAIDI Index – the System Average Interruption Duration Index – which states that the average annual time of unplanned interruptions (as compared to the national average of 283.9 minutes/year in 2017, in our case the figures are: 259 minutes for the Banat area, 185 minutes for the Dobrogea area and 145 minutes for Muntenia). This is partly due to the modernisation of the transformer substations, but also due to the performance of our workers. E-Distribuție Muntenia, E-Distribuție Banat and E-Distribuție Dobrogea reunite 2,200 employees in the three power distribution areas, that we are in charge of. Our colleagues in the technical departments of the three companies benefit from constant professional training, to make sure that their skills allow them to cope with any difficulties in their day to day activities, even under time pressure. What they do is not easy and, in the current conditions of the labour market, it is not easy to find people like them.

Safety first

We are using virtual reality in our wider training programmes, to train our employees and those of the contractors as regards the safety rules, since our goal in terms of safety is zero accidents/incidents, a goal which we achieved in 2018.

The project simulates a typical scenario where the trainee must follow the mandatory procedures in the case of an intervention on the power lines: delimit the work space, check whether voltage is available or interrupted, separate electrical circuits, earth the power line. They must also wear the appropriate personal protection equipment and make sure they can correctly control the movement of the platform. Other training scenarios will be developed in the future.

The equipment available in the VR application is identical to the real one, the height at which the work is done is also simulated, as well as the electrical risks. The trainees can also feel the consequences: if you don’t wear insulating gloves, you will feel a vibration similar to electric shock, and if you don’t observe the procedures of working at a height, you will experience the feeling of falling. Of course, it is just an impression, but the brain is easily tricked by this type of devices, as anyone who has ever used VR knows!

Future electricians

Because we are not preoccupied just with developing our current electricians, but also with training young people, at the beginning of 2018-2019 school year, we initiated the “Dual Class – Future Electrician” programme, by which E-Distribuție Muntenia supports the training of students in the Bucharest Technical Energetic College.

At least 20% of the practice hours are held in our company’s facilities, and in the third year the percentage will go up to 70%. The project also includes mentoring hours, doubling the state scholarship and supporting other expenses of the students. We are looking forward to meeting the first generation of graduates who will become electricians and will contribute to the proper functioning of the electric stations and grids.