ISCO Insights Podcast leans on industry expert Ed Cooper, staff engineer gas standards with CenterPoint Energy to peel away the layers of electrofusion. Listen in for his insights on evolution of electrofusion and what the future holds in this episode. 

Sean Moth 

Hello again and welcome to ISCO insights podcast. So glad that you’ve joined us. My name is Sean Moth, we were thrilled to have Mike James on last time uncovering some of the mysteries about large diameter pipe. We’re just as thrilled, if not more to be joined by staff engineer and gas standards at Centerpoint. Energy, Ed Cooper. Ed, thank you so much for your time, really appreciate you taking some time to join us.

Ed Cooper 

Absolutely Welcome. Glad to be here.

Sean Moth 

So let’s just start with your background a little bit. How in the world did you get into this world of electro fusion and gas distribution.

Ed Cooper 

So I’m a mechanical engineer from the University of Evansville and actually started my career in underground mining, hoisting and elevators kind of worked on a lot of the slope, hoist and elevators for coal and inertia, metal, non metal, and kind of had a career change kind of, we had a lot of travel, gone, West Virginia, East Kentucky a lot and family was growing. But first daughter was born, and it was time to get a little closer to home. So I got a great opportunity with a legacy CenterPoint Energy Company, and just just got deep into the market.

Sean Moth 

Tell me about your evolution, that center point into your current position, because I’m sure there were some some steps that were taken over the course of time.

Ed Cooper 

You know, it’s a really interesting story that Vectren was the was the legacy company. And they created the position of gas standards engineer, and I was the first and have been the first and only and have just just evolved the position. In the center point.

Sean Moth 

Was it difficult to go into a position that didn’t have a blueprint? It’s actually something I’ve done. And I found that there was kind of a liberating feeling to it. But at the same light, you couldn’t go back and see, well, how the other guy handle it. You know, that’s

Ed Cooper 

very interesting. You said that, and it’s been told to me, and you know, after the fact that I was hired, because I had no gas experience. And I wouldn’t come in and say, well, here’s how we used to do it at the previous company, or here’s a predetermined disposition, which is really interesting in

Sean Moth 

the gas industry. Yeah. So let’s just get an overview of electrofusion. And, and maybe where we’re at now, how much is it permeated? What is the status of electrofusion? Right now?

Ed Cooper 

Sure. So my take on it, it’s really interesting, because as I came in, and the industry in 2011, there was four or five different approved heat fusion methods mechanical and heat fusion. And as we were looking into cleaning up and becoming a little more lean, we kind of harnessed in and focused in on electrofusion, it became the approved go to method and we eliminated multiple other conventional methods, we eliminated the training, we found efficiencies of reduced owed him, and by standardizing on electrofusion, so the Indiana Ohio region is Centerpoint has been majority electrofusion, and then some but fusion since since 2012. So where we are today as an industry, which is interesting, you know, I’m on ASTM F 17 committee, and I’ve got an an open project to write a new electrofusion standard for the industry, and kind of taking some of the successes of the buck fusion industry using the PPI tr 33. And then the ASTM F 2620. And all the work those experts have done to kind of meld the two standards together, we’re going to do the same thing with with electrofusion, we’re going to bring together an industry recognized manufacturing and user group standard that’s going to harmonize our joining methods and hopefully create this, this standard that all utilities can use, we can all use the same joining method. And we can use multiple different brands of electrofusion interchangeably.

Sean Moth 

Fantastic. What’s been the biggest change in terms of the evolution of electrofusion?

Ed Cooper 

You know, I’d say that there’s been a few new or new to the US electrofusion manufacturers that have come around in the 10 plus years, I’ve been doing this, I would say that the quality and the standards of the product as probably what’s is what has come around is the ISO quality control. I would also say that dimensional tolerance, and that utilities themselves in users are doing their own lab testing, and are doing a lot of verification and proving that the product is what it says it’s

Sean Moth 

supposed to be. I’m still new to the HDPE world in the electric fusion world. But I heard you say in the US kind of as an aside, it’s kind of astonishing to me how far behind we are as a cutting edge country to look and see how widely HDPE has been used overseas. Sure.

Ed Cooper 

So So what overseas is called pe 100. Right? Sure. And here we you know, HDPE or 4710 is what we refer to it, but yes, that is the predominant market, you know, a gas utility. Most a lot of the US or majority of us is using a medium density which would be, I think, a PE ad. And it’s not very prevalent in overseas. And so really for us, and for me, Indiana, Ohio region, a center point, we are all HDPE. We’re all 4710, for a lot of reasons. But I think I see that the HDP has come a long way. And I think every day we get closer to the utility industry being more 5050 MDPE versus HTP. Well,

Sean Moth 

I guess that leads me to my next question. HDPE is very widely used. Why?

Ed Cooper 

So really, I think the the big, the big expansion was with the 4710, that bimodal resin, the some of the universal resins of the past had some weaknesses. And so the 4710, being bimodal has a lot of great performance characteristics. Also think you’re going to find that there’s lots of resin manufacturers, and then you can you combine those with lots of extruders or moulders, molding fittings and extruding pipe, and you’re going to find that creates this matrix of protection for an end user. So you think about all the hurricanes and tsunamis and tornadoes, and then you have forced matures, and supply chain disruptions. And what you’ll find is us as utility are better protected from these massive roller coaster rides. When we have a good mix of resin and and suppliers. It

Sean Moth 

seems that oil and gas is accepted HDPE kind of ahead of a lot of the other end markets in the US for transmission and distribution of oil and gas. Can you speculate as to why? Well, obviously,

Ed Cooper 

it’s got a higher strength ratings, right. So you can you can do more pressure, you know, more flow, you know, you can, you can use it in a wider range. Now, in the gas utility industry, especially for the company I work for is we under utilize the high performing asset. So we can take pressures up to 125 psi G for natural gas, but most of times we run a 60 pound ma LP. So we feel as though that we are under utilizing this high performing asset and it’s kind of an extra safety force.

Sean Moth 

Can you speculate, and maybe this is out of the purview, but can you speculate as to why municipal water and sewer and some of these other end markets are maybe a little bit behind oil and gas when it comes to utilizing HDPE?

Ed Cooper 

Well, and this would be my unprofessional, but very professional. So I would say that when when you have a leak on a water market, you have a mud puddle, right. And if you have a leak or uncontrolled spill, in the oil and gas gathering and gas distribution, you have a serious safety or environmental concern. And so I think when it comes to integrity of our system, you want to use the highest performing asset you can,

Sean Moth 

you know, which it kind of adds to the intrigue as to why they are maybe a little bit behind because if it is safer oil and gas, it makes sense that it would be safe for the other. This is a terrible way to frame it. But I want to talk about failures, and electrofusion. What is crucial to avoid those failures. Well,

Ed Cooper 

obviously, we’ve talked a lot about a high performing product and HDPE. And so with a high performing product, you have to make high performing joint, right. And so a lot of the times we see that electrofusion and but fusion is is is as strong if not stronger than the pipe itself. And so when we see that it’s really up to the operator. So there’s two kind of get in the weeds. There’s there’s variables in a in a heat fusion, there’s pressure, there’s temperature, and there’s time. And so when you think about electrofusion, the pressure and the time is taking care of for you by the electrician processor, obviously the tailor to the fitting and the makeup. But the issues really come back to that the operator must follow the written procedures operator being the qualified purchaser needs to follow the written procedures because they’re there for a reason. And that the adherence to those steps and cleanliness will will create a joint that is stronger than the pipe. It’s the

Sean Moth 

alcohol that the peeling process and all that. What are some of the tools? I know you focused on the workforce? And obviously, as training is a big part of what ISCO does, but But what are some of the tools that kind of helped that execution to be sure that you’re doing it the right way? Sure.

Ed Cooper 

I mean, the, I’d say the peeler and even using the term peeler is interesting, because when I started in the industry, and again, there’s a lot of industry experts that may be listening to this. And I was at the ASTM meeting last week, around a lot of these very seasoned experts. When I started with scraping, okay to talk about scraping. Yeah, but when you think about a consistent peel, you can think about a consistent ribbon of material that is consistent from the beginning to the end of your fusion zone. That’s a peeler. Sure and that the adoption of peeling in the industry is crucial, because it’s consistent. And it’s even, and it’s the same every time right. And so I think the peeler to me is is is what is the most A crucial tool that we use to prepare the fusion. And then obviously, the fusion processor to complete it. Somehow

Sean Moth 

I get that image of grandma with a paring knife taking care of that, that apple. And it’s an interesting kind of a metaphor of it, the Highland Supercell processor. This is a new evolution. I know, in our insights blog, we were able to kind of dig into the advantages. And I think from a sustainability standpoint, it jumps out right there in and of itself, because you eliminate the generators, you’re allowed to work consistently. And we can, we could do an entire podcast about that. But you wanted some early access to that that piece. Tell me why Sure.

Ed Cooper 

So when you think about the the fusion approved fusion processes for India, and Ohio at Centerpoint, and we were all electric fusion, and but fusion puts hundreds of 1000s of electrocution joints in the ground every year, and we’ve got lots of in house and contract staff that they’re just, they’re busy, they’re doing lots of miles. And so when we think about the the equipment, that they need to be productive and efficient, that cutting the cord, right, not having to deal with the generator, cutting the cord, and a lot of times we sit in an office and a nice collared shirt, and we talk about field procedures, but there’s no one dragon mud into those meetings, because they’re not from the field. And so I like to take the approach that we go to the back alley easements, where the crew trek won’t fit in the alley was too wide, we go to where the service comes in behind the house, and we’re in you can’t get there. So you take a product that is a battery, you know, fusion, electrical equipment, and now you’re able to be mobile weighs half as much as some of the other battery power stuff. So we talk about safety in and for our guys and ensuring that they’re using proper lifting and pulling methods. But when the processor weighs half Yeah, of some of the other equipments, a briefcase.

Sean Moth 

So it seems like the bigger benefit to the Highland supercell. Is that, like you kind of touched on the accessibility. But the reality is that it can be applied to an entire job and really because of its charge, and because of how much work it can do, do you see the growth of that piece of equipment expanding? Because it is so efficient?

Ed Cooper 

Yeah, so we’ve got two things here, we’ve got capability as in the size of the and the size of the fittings, you can do. And then we’ve also got then the amount of capacitance that it has. And what’s interesting about it is, you know, lead acid batteries of the old fusion processors, they follow a curve and the more they dissipate, the less capacitance I have, well, lithium ion in the supercell doesn’t work that way. It has as much capacitance in the last 10% as it does in the first 10%. So not only now do you have this wider range of fittings that you can do, but now you also have the capacitance. So we have service crews, who can do tapping tees and one inch, two inch couplings, and they can use it all week without charging. And what’s also interesting about it is you never know where you are, in capacitance level, like we all drive to work every day. You see what the gas gauge says, Yes, well, you know how many miles you’ve driven since you last filled up. Previous technology doesn’t have the ability to know where you are in capacitance, where the supercell does provide you with percentage. And it also tells you about how many fittings of that type it’ll do. So it really does give the operator the qualified personnel the insight to know hey, I can start this job and I can finish this

Sean Moth 

job. Do you envision the advancement of that type of technology to get into some more larger diameter pipe? And and I almost even trying to speculate in my head is there a way to use that lithium ion technology to be able to heat a plate and perform but fusion without a generator? Do you do you see that technology coming down the road? Absolutely.

Ed Cooper 

So the a lot of the lithium ion you know even in the marine industry is about cutting weight and increasing capacity and having stable power. Motor racing, same thing less weight, less track time. So yes, I see there is also a fine balance between reliability of the equipment and and its application. Sure. And you know, a lot of times you say well, you won’t have to have a generator for that. But if you’ve also have a generator running a pump, in a ditch that’s going to run to pump water out of a hole, you’ve already got one there. So I think it’s a fine balance I think I’ve we’ve also spoke about in our crews that is not a one size fits all always sure if you’re going to do eight inch or 12 inch couplings all day long. You know having a having a steady current and power source may be a better application heat dissipation processor, but for the wide range and the sizes that we use in a gas utility, the supercell does this fit to fit our niche? Well,

Sean Moth 

and what I’ve noticed too is there is some confusion in electro fusion. And that’s the it’s certain jobs The both but fusion electrofusion can can both be used. And I know that that can confuse people. But it really is simple that some cases one’s better than the other. But there’s a lot of cases where both can be used. Sure

Ed Cooper 

you think about the, if you’re stringing pipe, you know, and you’re doing lots of quantities, or you’re doing your boring pipe, you know, but but fusion is the go to, but then you think about the tie ends where you’re trying to connect branches or laterals, and you think about in the size and the weight of the pipe and the thickness of the wall, and you’re trying to get about fusion machine in the hole, you’re trying to perform this lineup. So there’s lots of work techniques that use electrofusion, especially for those connections that gives our operators a better environment and just allows them to make that joint successful over time by using electrofusion

Sean Moth 

one of the most respected experts in the field at Cooper is our guest on our ISCO insights podcast. And I want to ask we we produce the blog on the island supercell. We also had one recently unsustainability, and part of the thought of that blog is we can talk about being green all we want, but it’s just talk and until you act that really has no value. That’s kind of where this electrofusion and especially the highlands Supercell comes in. How important is that moving forward in your industry? To have some awareness of what we need to do to be sure we’re kind of taking care of things you just said Earth Day last weekend? It’s important to everybody? Yeah. So

Ed Cooper 

as the gas utility and equipment that we use, we we have to think about the steps that we’re taking to, to limit that and take credit for a lot of times when we we do natural things like the supercell to me, wasn’t driven for emissions reduction. But when you think about it as a package, we all should be taking credit for that. Yeah, that should be first and foremost. I think also, when you use using electrofusion, and a bubble tight, you know, 100 year connection, also prevents leaks. And emissions from last night accounted for gas. And I think, moving forward, we’re using inverters on trucks, we’re using LED lights that you can charge at the office and they’ll last all night on a project. That’s just reduction of internal combustion engine running. Yeah,

Sean Moth 

they know is HDP from an ISCO standpoint as a 50 to 100 year solution, that certainly, as long as you the fusion is performed correctly, you don’t interrupt things. It’s kind of nice to when the convenience meets the sustainability. And they meet there in the middle. Because we certainly want to be efficient in everything we do. But you have to be mindful of having that sustainability link. And so when when you can do both, that really is pretty good feeling. Yeah. So your work with ISCO, we’ve had an opportunity to do a few jobs with you. And you in particular spoke about the highlands Supercell processor, but talk a little bit to your experiences working with ISCO.

Ed Cooper 

So kind of like I’ve spoke to a legacy Centerpoint company, I’ve worked with a legacy company and and then as ISCO came around with their Highland tooling, and then the supercell. And we just find more and more solutions with a scope. That is very convenient for us. For Indiana, Ohio, that ISCO is in Louisville, Kentucky. So we have offices right across the river in Clarksville. We have offices in Dayton, Ohio, and it just seems to be just nested perfectly for us. For our India know how territory also safe. And you know, we all respond to change is oh, we had a new new rule came out from FEMSA about equipment inspection. Sure. 192 756. And so we’re reading through that and looking at what we can do to follow the rule. And we’ve just met we just need a turnkey solution we just need we just need someone to come in we you know, our operations guys are are always just busy. And it’s an it’s the unplanned busy the the phone calls a car ran over a station, you know, public stuff, and it’s just unplanned, kind of sometimes controlled chaos. Yeah. ISCO came in and performed all of our one on a to 756 equipment inspections. Not only did we meet the film’s a code, what we found is we became more best practice. Not only did we have some equipment that passed, we had some that said, Well, you know, it makes it but there is opportunity to improve here. And and I think as you look across when ISCO went to Minnesota and did work for Senator point up there, we just became more efficient, we eliminated tooling. We got more focused on the tools that we used, the tools got better. It was just a great experience. It’s

Sean Moth 

been a good partnership. Let’s look at the future. We kind of touched on it, but where does the future of electrofusion lie what what advances Can you kind of foresee is as we let you speculate into the end of the future and see what you can move forward with?

Ed Cooper 

I would say that, you know that the future is the is the is the common standard that is actually adopted by all manufacturers and that’s our goal. And you know if you like i said i use the TR 30 Three to 2620 Well, there’s a PPI document tr 49 And there’s a Municipal Utilities Board document on like fusion and to have now an ASTM standard which I’m way behind. So those that are listening to this that know me know I am behind on getting this out of the ground my graph 16 but to bring to actually bring five or six electrofusion manufacturers in with a dozen users, and an international body like ASTM, and to have an agreed upon standard that could potentially be incorporated into FIFA, or anyone else. I think that’s the biggest advancement technology wise. It you know, it’s it’s a it’s commonly known and it’s it’s a standard product, it’s had success for all these years. I don’t know if it’s not broke, don’t fix it, right. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think there’s some some tappings submission some some new stuff coming with tapping and stopping using electrofusion to do some inservice where some conventional heat fusion would have some concern, but ya never know what’s gonna come. All right,

Sean Moth 

well, we really appreciate your time Ed Cooper from CenterPoint Energy, just anything else in general, you’d like to

Ed Cooper 

know I don’t know that I’ve ever been ever been on a podcast and done this. But it really appreciate the opportunity. Really enjoy the work that I do. Like the industry, I never would have dreamed coming from elevators and hoisting to be in this industry that just so passionate about it and and my involvement to AIGA and ASTM, and, and the leadership roles I’ve had in both of those organizations and have, I’m just just glad to be here.

Sean Moth  Well, I can see eye to eye with the career path change, I can identify with that. And it it has been a pleasure. And I can’t thank you enough for the time you’ve taken such a respected member of this. This industry. It’s it’s phenomenal to get your insight on this subject. We thank you. Thank you. And Cooper, our guest, we thank you so much for joining our ISCO insights podcast, we remind you to take a look at the blog on the Highland Supercell processor. And of course, our webinar is Thursday, April 27, that if you miss out on that, it is always available on our website at ISCO-pipe.com check on the resources tab. And you can learn all you need to know about the world of HDPE and in this particular case, our monthly focus on electro fusion. Again we thank Ed Cooper for joining us. I look forward to talking to you next time on ISCO insights podcast