The state Public Utility Commission yesterday issued its annual Electric Service Reliability Report, and called on Pennsylvania’s eleven electric utilities to get aggressive in trimming trees along power lines and in replacing old equipment. Penelec, in particular, has a lot of work to do.
West Penn Power had eleven major outages in 2017 to lead the state. Right behind, with ten major outages, were Penelec and PPL.
Penelec serves 582,000 customers across the region, including Indiana County. The PUC says the utility experienced one million customer interruptions of power in 2017, and 138.5 minutes of interruptions. The average time for each outage rose from 120 minutes in 2016 to 133 last year.
The report notes that in 2015, the PUC began increased monitoring of Penelec because of its poor reliability performance, ordering the company to implement a Corrective Action Plan. Trees and equipment failures are the main causes of the company’s outages. But the report says trees continue to be the most destructive factor in power outages. Ash trees killed by the invasive emerald ash borer insect are a specific problem area.
While the report says PennDOT has stepped up its tree and brush clearing program and is also working on fixing problems caused by aging equipment, more needs to be done. Quoting the PUC report, “Penelec’s performance continues to be leaning more negatively…. A more aggressive approach to tree trimming will be necessary…”
