MD Public Service Commission Investigates Pepco’s Failings

The Public Service Commission (PSC) of Maryland has launched an investigation into Pepco’s reliability problems. The Commission has ordered Pepco management to appear at a public hearing at 9:30 AM on Tuesday, August 17, 2010. The hearing will be broadcast live on the PSC Web site. You can watch.

The PSC justifies their investigation due to the large number of complaints from the public about the number of power outages, the duration of the power outages, and the number of customers affected after the area’s severe weather.

For example, Pepco reported that recent power outages on July 25, 2010, August 5, 2010, and August 12, 2010 affected 297,000 customers, 75,000 customers, and 98,000 customers, respectively. The Commission also has received complaints of frequent and apparently inexplicable outages occurring outside of storm events. Additionally, customers have complained about Pepco’s failure to communicate effectively with its customers during outages – in part due to the apparent failure of Pepco’s automated communications system.

On July 29, 2010, the Montgomery County Council sent a letter to Mr. Douglas R.M. Nazarian, the chairman of the PSC, asking the Commission to open an investigation into the reliability of electricity in Pepco’s Montgomery County’s service territory. In the excerpt below, the County Council asks PSC to find the answers to several questions including:

• whether or not Pepco has sufficient in-house staff to maintain its infrastructure,
• what are the full range of measures necessary to mitigate the impact of trees, including undergrounding the wires, and
• whether minimum reliability standards can be adopted so Pepco can be held accountable for the length of time a customer is without power.

The County Council also advocated for human beings to answer the phones as much as possible when there are outages. They also want the Commission to insure that the best technology and mapping systems are available to customers online so they can receive accurate information in real time.

From the letter from the Montgomery County Council to the Public Service Commission of Maryland:

Our residents and businesses have suffered an unacceptable number and duration of outages for many years, outages that have harmed public health, public safety and the County’s economy. As a distribution-only utility, the quality and reliability of Pepco’s service is exclusively within your authority. We ask you to invoke that authority to ensure our citizens of acceptable levels of reliability.

We recognize that severe storms like the most recent one to ravage our community, as well as the blizzards this past winter are occurrences of nature that can not be blamed on the utility. However, the extreme results this storm produced highlighted the underlying reality that the distribution system in Montgomery County is extremely vulnerable. Even on cloudless, idyllic days, our residents have experienced unexplained outages. And this happens all too often leading us to ask whether or not Pepco has sufficient in-house staff to maintain its infrastructure.

We also recognize that our county and our citizens value our tree canopy, and that trees are often blamed for outages. But that simplistic response begs the question – what are the full range of measures necessary to bring our system to a level of reliability that meets the legitimate needs of our community, including measures that mitigate the impact of trees? Pepco officials told our Council Tuesday that they have investigated undergrounding those portions of the system that have experienced repeated outages.

We believe such measures, and others that could increase reliability, require a thorough investigation by your Commission. While it is often said that undergrounding and other measures are expensive, the cost to our county and to the state of these repeated outages is also very large – economically and otherwise.

More broadly, we believe that every outage ought to be reported to your Commission, with a report on its causes, the length of time a customer was without power, and the measures that Pepco is taking to ensure that the cause of the outage is rectified. We also suggest that the Commission adopt minimum reliability standards so that Pepco can be held accountable – assuming that you provide Pepco the resources that it needs to significantly improve the system.

And finally, we strongly suggest that you ensure, to the maximum extent practicable, there are human beings answering the phones when there are outages. When a customer loses power, getting a recorded message, often with misleading information, is infuriating. Residents deserve accurate information regarding restoration efforts and a good faith estimate as to when power will be restored. In addition, Pepco should be required to use the best technology and mapping systems available so that customers can avail themselves of real time, accurate information online.

Signed:

Roger Berliner, Lead for Energy and Environment Council
Nancy Floreen, Council President
Valerie Ervin, Council Vice President
Phil Andrews
Marc Elrich
Mike Knapp
George Leventhal
Nancy Navarro
Duchy Trachtenberg

The Order for the proceeding in Baltimore directs the Company’s Chief Operating Officer, and the Company’s senior officers responsible for system maintenance, storm restoration, and customer service to respond to questions. The PSC will also determine the procedures for the ongoing investigation.

What would you ask?

Personally, I want to know more about the tree trimming program. In the past, Pepco routinely publicized a very specific schedule for neighborhoods but in recent years the information shared has been much more general. The 2010 schedule lists counties and municipalities while leaving the area column blank.

Click to enlarge

The last detailed listing was in 2002:
Montgomery County—West Rockville, Willows of Potomac, Potomac Highlands, South of Gaithersburg, White Flint, Garret Park, Stoney Brook, Rosewood, Sunset Terrace, Sligo Park Knolls, East Kensington, Forest Glen and Wheaton.

Here’s the previous year’s list in 2001:
Montgomery County—Rockville, Shady Grove, Gaithersburg, Washington Grove, Montgomery Village, Glen Echo, Layhill, Norbeck, Colesville, Somerset, Chevy Chase, Friendship Heights, Aspen Hill.

When you visit the Pepco site you can find a definition of Tree Pruning which states trees should be pruned every two to five years:

The types of trees along our primary distribution lines in residential areas generally need pruning every two to five years. This is routine pruning. Asplundh, our tree pruning contractor, prunes every tree that could potentially come in contact with power lines or other electrical equipment. The goal is to maintain and deliver safe and reliable electric service to our customers by minimizing outages caused by trees.

Some believe the investigation to be a “dog and pony show” during an election year but customers need the PSC to get to the root of the problem and force Pepco to deliver dependable service. With today’s technology, we can keep an eye on the process and file a complaint.

Share and enjoy:

Hide Sites