John Allender isn’t thinking that he’s part of an industry trend amid the roar of a chainsaw, woodchips flying, sweating under layers of safety gear in the heat and humidity of a Kentucky midsummer.

The apprentice lineman for Salt River Electric Cooperative in Bardstown signed up for this new tree-clearing workshop because he knew he’d be called on more and more for this type of work, and, frankly, he wasn’t all that comfortable with a chainsaw in his hands.

“I grew up on 16 acres, and if we used a chainsaw, it was to cut brush, that’s about it,” he says. “We weren’t cutting firewood or trees. If we ran one, it was few and far between. And I definitely didn’t know about the maintenance side.”

The workshop was run by the statewide association, Kentucky Electric Cooperatives, which started the program after an analysis of recent incident data from its member co-ops showed that accidents and near misses involving chainsaws and other tree-clearing work were on the rise.

NRECA Safety Director Ken Macken says new and expanded trainings like Kentucky’s are becoming more prevalent as a wave of retirements from operations positions means line crews with less experience—or different experience—are taking over.

The most recent NRECA data shows co-ops hired 2,250 new lineworkers in 2023 and more than 1,900 in 2024.

“Anytime you add a new asset, your safety awareness has to rise to another level,” Macken says. “Leaders need to be proactive in identifying all the major energy sources on their systems and providing training to be as safe as we can possibly be.”

Distributed Generation

Distributed generation (DG) refers to a variety of technologies that generate electricity at or near where they’re used, and it encompasses everything from rooftop solar to generators to small wind turbines.

Macken says the biggest threat with DG is backfeed (see this month's Infographic for more on backfeed), a dangerous condition where electricity flows opposite from its normal direction. Crews working on lines or restoring an outage may assume a line is “dead” and not realize power is being sent onto the grid from a residential solar array or generator.

Most backfeed incidents and near-misses that Macken has heard about have been the result of human error or equipment failures, and he says different facets of the topic are becoming a major focus of trainings and conversations among crews.

“For example, solar-powered generators are totally quiet” and can easily be missed by crews, he says.

“This could cause unwanted power on downed lines that personnel weren’t prepared for if they didn’t take proper steps to protect themselves in their lockout/tagout procedures and working safely both on the source and load side.”

In Illinois, Corn Belt Energy’s Daren Deverman has seen too many close calls with backfeed.

“We’ve had backfeeds from multiple things,” says the manager of safety and forestry at the Bloomington-based co-op. “Our procedures have saved us so far.”

Corn Belt crews have encountered scenarios involving a plug-in solar panel on a lawn chair, an electric cord running from a member’s house that backed through the meter and improperly programmed solar inverters sending voltage back through the meter.

Safety experts point to several devices that can help crews detect backfeed:

• Mandatory automatic or manual transfer switches for residences with DG, a National Electrical Code requirement.
• Meter-level interlock systems that can detect whether a generator is on and immediately isolate the house circuit from the grid.
• Electric panel interlock kits, which include a mechanical switch or sliding plate to prevent simultaneous operation of two power sources, such as utility grid and a backup generator.

Dwight Miller, senior director of safety training & loss prevention at Ohio’s Electric Cooperatives, advises co-ops to implement a “grounding plus one” regime, where protective grounds are installed at the worksite plus at least one of these elements: insulation, isolation or an equipotential zone (EPZ).

Grounding plus one, a term coined by former OEC Training Manager Kyle Hoffman, “works because it’s easy to remember and will help keep you safe in every situation when things go wrong,” Miller says. “Whether someone closes a switch on you, a portable generator backfeeds onto the system, a solar component fails, an IOU line falls down on ours ... you name it.

“It’s our job to ensure our crew is always protected regardless of who does what or what goes wrong. It’s all in our control. EPZ, rubber gloves, or stay away from it. This isn’t hard stuff.”

At the end of the day, Macken says, DG safety recommendations—testing voltage, grounding lines, implementing lockout/tagout procedures and wearing “every last piece” of PPE—are the same as those for traditional power supply sources.

“Always check for the presence of voltage on lines or equipment you are preparing to work on,” he says. “You can’t take for granted that a line or equipment is de-energized just because a breaker or switch is in the off position.”

Co-ops should also consider educating staff and the public about the risks of DG and the importance of safe interactions, Macken says.

“As the public continues to dabble with solar, generators and other forms of DG,” he says, “education is paramount on the dangers of backfeed and other hazards.”

Battery Energy Storage Systems

As battery energy storage systems (BESS) proliferate across the U.S. grid, they present a host of safety challenges for co-op crews, says Macken.

BESS deployments at electric co-ops are on the rise. Co-ops own or operate around 126 grid-level storage projects in 27 states, and capacity is projected to grow from 439 megawatts now to around 1.5 gigawatts by 2028, according to a July 2025 report by NRECA’s Business & Technology Strategies group.

Backfeed is less of a concern with large-scale BESS because these systems have strong safeguards to prevent unintentionally sending power to the grid. Smaller residential-size systems, however, can pose backfeed dangers if they’re not installed properly, Macken says.

He says the biggest challenge with BESS systems is when they fail catastrophically, leading to thermal runaway, which can cause fire and deflagration, similar to an explosion. Such instances are rare, Macken says, but co-ops should be working to avoid them and to get line crews and local fire departments up to speed on how to contain and combat a lithiumion battery fire.

“Batteries look like big storage containers, so they don’t seem like much of a threat,” says Mike Hussung, special projects engineer at Franklin, Indiana-based JCREMC, which will bring three utility-scale battery systems online by year end. “But there’s a lot of energy, electronics and wiring in them that if something goes wrong, they could short out and start a fire. If lithium gets burning, it burns really, really, really hot.”

An August 2024 report by NRECA’s Rural Energy Storage Deployment Program and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory found that BESS accidents frequently involve “unlisted consumer devices,” which, in addition to safety concerns, can generate bad publicity and “guilt-by-association” for co-ops.

The report, “Battery Energy Storage System Safety Report: Design Considerations for Electric Cooperatives,” recommends a whole-system approach consisting of early involvement during design and commissioning stages to check for flaws and safety gaps.

“Key components of the full system design—including thermal and environmental management, battery management system, power conversion system, enclosure, grounding, communications, workmanship and operations and maintenance—each play a key role in the safe lifecycle of a lithium-ion BESS,” the report states.

Angelea Kelly, regulatory compliance and resource coordinator at Federated Rural Electric Insurance Exchange, visits several co-op-owned BESS facilities each year, advising on standards and reviewing site compliance.

“The scope of safety for a utility is to do proper hazard analysis, which includes working in lockstep with a reputable battery vendor and training for first responders and employees because a lineworker would likely be the one checking on a BESS, which typically are in substations,” she said, noting that general public awareness about battery safety is also a good idea.

Hussung advises co-ops to get involved during the design phase to ensure the installation meets safety guidelines.

“You don’t want to wait until it’s installed and active to start thinking about safety concerns. You want to have that in mind from the start,” Hussung says. “It’s hugely important.”

JCREMC has begun partnering with local firefighters, enlisting their help to draft emergency response plans and inviting them to lineworker trainings.

“We want to familiarize them with where to go if they need to disconnect the battery site from the grid and what would and would not be expected of them,” Hussung says.

‘Welcome Days’

“Cuts in a tree can make it fall where you want, but fibers within a tree are different.”

Allender was one of more than a dozen apprentice and contract crews from three central Kentucky co-ops rotating among three stations at the workshop, held at a heavily wooded 90-acre site owned by Big Rivers Electric Corp.

Designed by Jeremy Swift, a safety and loss prevention instructor at the Kentucky statewide, the program’s two other rotations simulate tension principles with a tree lying across a wire and a “spring pole” situation involving several trees.

“This workshop is a big deal because, to be honest, we’re trained to be lineworkers, not tree trimmers, and we’ve learned on the job,” says Charlie Lewis, another statewide safety and loss prevention instructor. “We’re trying to bridge that gap, so they’ll have that knowledge of how to do it safely.”

Meredith says young lineworkers like Allender bring different life experiences to the job than the folks who have historically filled line crews at co-ops.

“The ones who used to go into linework were usually farm kids. They’d use chainsaws for hours on end to cut wood, cut out fence rows, tree work,” he says. “These new recruits … they just haven’t had that exposure. We want to give them the confidence that they can learn and that they can do a good job.”

Barney Toy, safety director at Winchester, Kentucky-based Clark Energy Cooperative, sounds almost envious when discussing the menu of training opportunities now available for his staff from the statewide.

“They’ve expanded what they do so much in the last 10 years,” he says. “Like chainsaw training. We didn’t have that a couple of years ago. That’s something where the Kentucky statewide’s staff saw a need and met it. It’s wonderful.”

Macken says that as energy technologies and the workforce continue to shift, he’s seeing a renewed attention to safety nationwide.

“I’m seeing and sensing more support for safety,” he says. “And those are very, very welcome days.”