Truckee Donner Public Utility District
Home MenuTake a look back on the important work that TDPUD accomplished this year to serve our wonderful community and support our dedicated team.
˃ Electric Operations ˃ Water Operations
˃ Community Outreach & Communications ˃ Culture & Staff Development
Electric Operations
Winter Outage Response
Truckee received record snowfall during winter 2022-23, however TDPUD customers experienced minimal outages given the harsh conditions. Truckee customers experienced an average of 185 mins of power outages during all of 2023.
Our community enjoyed seeing behind-the-scenes photos taken by our crews out in the field as they dealt with winter weather, and social media comments were very supportive of our crews and staff.
Reliability, Safety & Resiliency
In 2023, there was a major focus on projects to improve and maintain the reliability, safety & resiliency of our electric infrastructure.
- Pole Replacement: TDPUD crews changed out more than 80 poles in 2023
- Flat Topping: reconfigure power lines to avoid the common outage cause of lines slapping together when they are configured vertically on the pole, rather than horizontally.
- ELF Fuse Replacement: Upgrading to more modern technology that mitigates wildfire risk.
Vegetation Management
TDPUD's commitment to wildfire safety has increased in both effort and investment over the last few years. Our vegetation management program operates year-round, as removing hazards from power lines also has a benefit in the winter. A common outage cause during winter is snow-loaded tree branches shedding snow or breaking and falling on power lines, and vegetation management helps mitigate this and makes our system more resilient. TDPUD and Truckee Fire have built a partnership in this effort, and continue to seek out ways to work together on this common goal.
2023 Stats:
- 2,158 branches trimmed
- 905 trees removed
- 150 poles cleared
- 12.7 miles cleared
Power Supply
TDPUD is one of the greenest utilities in California, with more than 60% of our electric purchase portfolio coming from carbon-free resources. In 2023 the Red Mesa Tapaha Solar Farm came online and now accounts for 10-15% of TDPUD's power supply, depending on month and weather. Our staff continues to explore new carbon-free resources to add to our power mix, including geothermal power, hydro power, solar power with battery storage, biogas and more.
Featured Projects
Church Street Undergrounding: In May, TDPUD participated in a multi-agency collaborative project surrounding the construction of a new roundabout at Glenshire Drive and Church St. TDPUD took advantage of the earth work being done to underground power lines in the area of the project.
Tahoe Donner Substation Vegetation Removal: In November, TDPUD completed a vegetation overhaul at the Tahoe Donner substation, a project that was identified as a priority for both our District and the Fire District.
Water Operations
Extreme Snow Removal
The electric crew gets most of the attention during winter power outages, but our water crew are the ones responsible for TDPUD snow removal. In 2023 they logged about 2-3x the average hours they spend on snow removal. They maintain not only access to water infrastructure, but keep electric substations and key infrastructure areas clear as well. Their work is often the first step to responding to winter power outages.
Reliability, Safety & Resiliency
2023 Water Department Stats
- 18,000+ ft. of pipeline installed
- 2.5M gallons of water storage added
- 82 leaks repaired
- 69 new services installed
- 4 wells rehabilitated
Same as on the electric side, the water crews were busy this summer with projects that strengthened our water infrastructure
- Valve upkeep, rebuild & replacement
- Well rehabilitation: Pull wells from underground in order to inspect and replace parts, increases lifetime of the well.
- Pipeline replacement: Maintenance projects in Glenshire in Tahoe Donner.
- Red Mountain Fire Flow Water Tank: Installed new pump and motor to add fire flow capacity in Donner Lake area.
- Meter upkeep: To sidestep supply chain issues that would affect operations, water staff took on rebuilding meters internally with more readily available equipment.
- Glenshire Master Meter: Helps pinpoint leaks and prevent water loss (crucial for compliance with new regulation), increases the efficiency of our system, contributes to TDPUD's overall net carbon reduction.
Water Quality
TDPUD achieved exceptional results on the 2022 Consumer Confidence Reports for our water systems (link to reports can be found on our homepage). We had no reportables. Our water is sampled and tested from all over our system every day. In 2023 our Senior Water Quality Technician performed approx. 1,500 water quality tests.
Featured Projects
Pioneer Pipeline & Pumpstation: The construction of this pipeline & pumpstation will create redundancy in our water system, will allow us to better serve 40% of our water customers, makes our system more energy efficient and increases fire flow. The pipeline is complete, and the pumpstation is expected to be complete in February, as we're waiting on materials affected by supply chain issues.
6170B Water Tank Construction: The construction of this 2.5M gallon tank is 20 years in the making. This tank not only increases our water holding capacity, but it means we can bring other tanks offline when needed, and it helps us pump water more efficiently. Construction of the tank is complete, but we need to wait for warmer temperatures to finish up some work that needs to be done before the tank is filled and brought online.
Other Key Projects
While we are an electric and water utility, not all of the work TDPUD staff does is out in the field. We have 80 employees at TDPUD, and every department had critical projects they took on in 2023.
IT & Admin Services
- Implemented new tools to modernize and improve communications with customers, including utilizing a new multi-channel system and in-check processing.
- Analyzed of radio network to improve communications in the field.
- Migrated to Microsoft 365 to modernize internal communications, enhance security and introduce new cloud-based systems.
Finance & Accounting
- Passed the FY 24 and FY 25 budget.
- Received the 2022 Certificate for Achievement in Transparency in Financial Reporting, for work that was compiled in 2023.
- Digitized accounts payable paperwork and payroll timesheets.
GM Department
- Rolled out employee health software that provides access to online Safety Data Sheets and global database, and electronic incident reporting.
- Moved to electronic health & safety inspections.
- Overhauled safety policies and processes, with compliance-focus.
- Implemented Civic Clerk for agenda management.
- Launched a digital job application process.
Community Community Outreach & Communications
Community Engagement & Education
TDPUD hosted a number of board workshops, community meetings, and interactive activities this year to engage and educate our customers on a variety of topics. Some examples include the Broadband Workshop, Community Circles, Budget Workshops, Electric Resource Workshop and Carbon Bingo contest. The community has indicated that education is important to them, so we will continue to find ways to do this in 2024, whether in person or through our communication channels.
Community Events
As a local public agency, it’s important to us to have a presence in the community, and we showed up and showed out at some of the most popular Truckee events this year, like Truckee Thursday, Truckee Day, Big Truck Day and the Truckee 4th of July Parade. Not only are these events a blast, but they provide an opportunity for TDPUD staff to engage with our customers in an informal setting.
Youth Engagement & Education
This year, we began to engage more with students in our local school district to educate on what our utility does and also showcase potential careers at TDPUD. We hosted field trips for the second grade classes at Truckee Elementary, spoke to students at the Truckee HS career fair, gave an hands-on presentation and Q&A with crew members to students at Loyalton HS who are interested in utility careers, and continue to partner with SWEP on conservation education.
Public Partnerships
We are proud of the work we do collaboratively with our local agency partners in the Truckee-Tahoe community, including the Truckee Tahoe Workforce Housing Agency, River Revitalization Steering Committee, Friends of the Library, Climate Transformation Alliance, TTUSD, Tahoe Institute for Natural Science and more.
Communication Campaigns
Our bigger campaigns of 2023 focused on how we help customers navigate life in Truckee, how TDPUD improves the quality of life in our community, the "why" behind the big projects being done this year, and what sets public utilities apart.
Culture & Staff Development
Internal Committees
TDPUD staff has the ability to join a number of committees to contribute to areas they have special interest in. New this year were the creation of the Community Committee and the All Hands Giving Back Fund Committee, to join our existing Culture Committee, Safety Committee and Benefits Committee.
Staff Recognition Days
We seek to value our staff through designated recognition days for variety of careers that make up our staff, including Engineers Week, International Women’s Day, Lineman Day, Electrician Day, Administrative Professionals Day, IT Day, Water Professionals Appreciation Week, Accountant’s Day and Automotive Service Professionals Day.
FUNdamental Education
Our staff has requested to understand more of what goes on in other departments and how they all work together to keep the utility running, so we've found fun ways to facilitate that education, like our all-day District Day program, induction cooking classes and water tank tours.
Trainings & Safety
TDPUD offered a number of training opportunities this year, both for the whole company and for specialized job needs. There is also a safety topic write-up every month in the newsletter, in addition to online training modules.
Office Events
We provide many opportunities for staff to gather socially, whether around a holiday, team potlucks, contests for cooking or photography, planting an Earth Day garden together, or our monthly birthday and work anniversary recognition.
Off-Site Events
Whether to team build or to recognize work well done, we had a few off-site activities that staff participated in this past year, like a staff BBQ and our inaugural recreation softball team.
Employee Survey
We survey staff annually to capture data about our team's satisfaction and priorities, and target areas for improvement. In February, 76% of staff completed the survey. We took this data and made adjustments, like revamping our all staff meeting structure, looking for ways to increase development opportunities, and improving internal communications. We will continue to use these surveys to benchmark progress and identify areas for improvement.
Internal Communications
In prior employee surveys, staff identified that they wanted a stronger focus on internal communications. This became a major focus of the Public Information Department this year.
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