Pepco Might Be Able To Improve Service In Four Years
Aug 18, 2010 9:42 - 7 Comments
Posted by: Cindy Cotte Griffiths
Department: City Issues,News
Tags: by Cindy Cotte Griffiths, Montgomery County, power outage 2010
Department: City Issues,News
Tags: by Cindy Cotte Griffiths, Montgomery County, power outage 2010
“We know it’s a frustrating summer for our customers.” was one of the first sentences uttered by Pepco’s senior officers at yesterday’s Public Service Commission (PSC) hearing to investigate their shortcomings. Halfway through the hearing, it became apparent that Pepco might be saying the same thing for a few more years.
The PSC had stacks of letters indicating a broad sense of unhappiness with Pepco’s reliability. They believe the community has been pushed to the breaking point. Those who have lived elsewhere with more severe weather don’t understand why the weather disrupts power service in Montgomery County. More importantly, people are saying their power is knocked out on a regular basis when there isn’t a storm.
The July 25th storm received an in depth review since it was the first one and the most severe. Pepco had crews and contractors on hand before the storm hit and within 16 hours additional assistance arrived. Over 90% of the outages were caused by trees. Pepco asserted that cost is never a consideration when they work to restore power as quickly as possible. Since the first storm was on a Sunday, which paid double time, there was no problem getting crews and sustaining contractors to work. Pepco secured help from First Energy in Akron which was the closest neighbor not in the tract of the storm. Other companies came to help as their areas were cleaned up. The staging area was at the Montgomery County Fairgrounds. They adjusted the way crew deployment was dispatched. Heavy equipment went first for trees then smaller crews with smaller trucks did service drops. Pepco believes they did “a good job of restoration to customers”.
In 2006 Pepco had a plan to improve average performance in four years. During this time there were slight improvements in the duration of outages but not in the frequency. They added distribution automation, increased the amount of URD (underground residential distribution) cable replaced, and added some underground residential distribution. Every year they identified pockets of feeders with problems then worked to bring them up to a level of standard. Pepco also strengthened partnerships with the County and State forestry groups because most outages are from trees on private property. They have worked with Department of Transportation and City of Rockville foresters about trimming or dropping trees.
Although Pepco’s executives stated their system was “robust”, their improvement strategy still has them in the bottom 25th percentile for reliability. Pepco is “dead last” for utilities in Maryland. They openly admitted they still have problems. Now they want to implement additional multi-year programs for tree trimming and cable replacement hoping to see an overall improvement in another four years. Unfortunately, it is not a nicely planned program with a start and end date.
The Commission wanted to know why improvement was not more urgent. Pepco contended it’s impractical to think they can address every problem in a year. They are addressing significant problems but must do so across the entire system.
Since their actions during the last four years didn’t work, the Commission wanted to know how their current strategy will be different compared to four years ago. Pepco intends to implement more aggressive measures to improve circuits which will have immediate benefits. Their reliability group has the sole purpose of evaluating the performance of the system. Circuits with problems are assigned to the engineer department for improvement. Substation improvements are done once and provide better service for years. 2% of the feeders are replaced across the system on an annual basis. They are replacing the cable in entire subsystems. Increased costs for an improved vegetation management program were brought up during rate discussions this year.
Looking at areas hardest hit from storms, Pepco knows tree trimming alone will not solve all the problems. During significant storms, trees standing 20 feet off the pole line cause outages, especially in older communities. A recent study showed that when trees were involved in outages, over 75% of the trees were outside the normal trimming area. Over half of those trees were found to be in poor health and rotted. They are looking at how they can become more aggressive. This involves rerouting cable and undergrounding wires in critical areas.
When yesterday’s hearing ended, they all agreed this was just the beginning. With Pepco’s lack of progress and long game plan, it certainly feels like a beginning. At a very minimum, customers can expect to suffer through a few more years of poor service.
The PSC discussed the increase in complaints. Unlike 15 years ago, Pepco believes consumers have educated themselves on the system and transformers, so they are more knowledgeable and more likely to speak up about problems. More people are working from home and since they are losing their livelihood, they are more likely to complain. If you would like to speak about the problems you are experiencing with Pepco, the PSC will be holding a public hearing on August 30, 2010 at 6 PM in Montgomery County Council Building. Photo identification is needed to enter.
Although I listened to the day’s proceedings as much as possible, I couldn’t cover the entire session which lasted from 9:30 AM until 3:50 PM with a mid-day break. Speakers were not routinely identified and the live video quality often prevented viewers from identifying speakers. If you watched, please let us know your impressions and any other information you think is important.
Further details about the Public Hearing in Rockville from Kumar Barve:
“Members of the public will be able to sign up in person one-half hour before the hearing begins. In order to ensure that everyone will be able to speak, the Public Service Commission requests that oral comments be limited to 5 minutes.
I believe the Public Service Commission is serious about solving this intolerable situation. Problem solving in government is a process that can only begin with your input.”
The County Council Office Building is at 100 Maryland Avenue.
The propensity for power outages around here really is a serious problem. I never experienced them in the 14 years I lived in Northern Virginia for more than a few hours, with one exception during Isabel and that was only about 8-10 hours. In only a few months in Rockville, I’ve already experienced three of them, and one was for almost 3 days.
I think the biggest problem is that all the power lines along main thoroughfares, as the roads are repaved and/or reconstructed, should be systematically buried. This would be a huge improvement in a number of ways, the least of which would be preventing storm damage from overhead lines.
I love trees like everyone else, but the Asplundh “treetrimmers” are actually mostly tree-killers because they butcher the crowns of large trees, increasing chances of disease and fungal infections, and create even worse growth interference problems down the road because of the way they do it (regrowth on most street tree species tends to be denser). In order to save trees, protect power lines during storms, and declutter our communities of the visual pollution of telephone poles and lines, it’s time to bury Montgomery County’s electrical grid, and it should start with the main power lines from the generating sources and along main thoroughfares.
Thank you to the Public Service Commission for investigating this issue, and here’s to hoping that it leads to a plan to bury the lines!
I live in a community whose electricity is supplied by underground feed of power lines. Yet we still were without power. So underground power feeds are not the simple answer. To increase frustrations, the community is supplied by multiple different feeds. So the folks behind us, or across the street from us often have power, when we are without.
I’d also be curious whether burying the lines along those tree-lined streets would not only be a problem with root growth, but also be that much harder and more expensive to fix if breaks occur underground. At least when things are in the open, they’re easy to find and fix.
To give PEPCO credit where credit is due, there are still private property owners using chainsaws on storm damage on their properties days after power was restored to the last of those out of power, and there are still apartment buildings up and down 355 with blue tarps on their roofs where damage has yet to be repaired. The last few months weather-wise really have been exceptional; until the storms in late July, the longest we’ve been out power was 3 days after T.S. Isabel (I think it was), and that was 5 years ago; otherwise it really has been intermittent and very short-lived, as in seconds to minutes.
Communication to people who have no power is also hard to manage. We did get information from a battery-operated radio and car radios tuned to WTOP, but we had zero internet from home - all wireless access was off as everyone’s modem was off - and of course no TV. We did hear bits and pieces from neighbors, but not all neighborhoods are chatty like ours was for those 48 hours; when we were still apartment-dwellers, we really knew none of our neighbors in those 3 years, as they moved in and out before we got to know them, so to us, knowing a handful of neighbors is a step up - and very few of them left their homes during the outages as it was as there are a number who are retired and/or disabled. Many of our neighbors don’t speak English as a first language and don’t even know about WTOP. Can PEPCO realistically be expected to communicate with people who have no power in circumstances like this?
I think that it is ridiculous the amount of bad press that Pepco is receiving.
It seems to me that no one was complaining about Pepco’s service, or failure to provide said service before the intense storms the area experienced.
For the PSC to suddenly hound Pepco now, instead of earlier for their shortcomings, almost seems like a knee-jerk reaction to upset residents from the catastrophic storm damage that we all have seen.
In my 19 years of living in Rockville, I’ve had my fair share of issues with Pepco’s service, most notably, the ice storm from way back when, and Tropical Storm Isabel. Since those storms however, Pepco’s service has seemingly improved according to me. In fact, I think we’ve lost power maybe once, for no more than ten minutes time, during the many violent storms we’ve had lately.
If you ask me, the PSC’s sudden interest is only because this happens to be a gubernatorial election year. If it were any other time, Pepco would not be under such severe scrutiny.
Nick-I agree with your comment this is due to an election-but I don’t think if I have heard O`Malley making 1/2 the hay our local delegation has. I’ve personally received several automated phone calls from Lou Simmons telling me how he’s taking Pepco to task for me. Well, Lou, I don’t remember asking for that. I was patient and I was understanding and I don’t expect miracles. I lost power for 2+ days, and for a few hours a second time. I saw the trucks, I knew the enormity of the problem. If some members of this delegation could make the earthquake an election issue they surely would.
This is global warming/climate change, folks. Beyond the shameful pandering, we need a plan for dealing with the severe weather that is going to be the norm rather than the exception.
Since I moved to Rockville I have lost power on a regular basis. The power often goes out on warm sunny days for no apparent reason. It also cost more than twice the amount I paid in VA. Granted some of that is the Montgomery county tax but even if that was eliminated it is still much higher. It is completely unacceptable.