On April 23, Public Utility Commission released its report providing detailed information about action items related to electric distribution company responses to the winter storms that brought significant wet snow and high winds to Pennsylvania in March 2018.

The two Nor-easter winter events occurred during the first week of March 2018, significantly impacting the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and its EDCs. 

The first event, Winter Storm Riley, began on Thursday, March 1, 2018, and lasted until Saturday, March 3, 2018. Riley was a powerful storm that produced high wind gusts up to 60 mph, and rain that changed into heavy, wet snow throughout the state.

These storm conditions caused approximately 680,000 electric customer outages at its peak March 2.

On March 7, 2018, a second weather event, Winter Storm Quinn, delivered additional heavy, wet snow and high winds into the Commonwealth.

Quinn delivered wind gusts up to 25 mph and additional snowfall accumulations of up to 14 inches in the same areas already trying to recover from the first storm, as Quinn arrived prior to the completion of electrical restoration for Riley, complicating prolonged restoration efforts in most areas.

In terms of the outages caused by both Quinn and Riley, the majority of customers (83 percent of the peak) were restored by 8 p.m. on March 5 and all customers were restored by March 13 at the latest.

“These storms resulted in hundreds of thousands of electric customer outages,” said Chairman Gladys Brown Dutrieulle.  “While we recognize the dedication and service of all utility workers who faced very challenging circumstances responding to storms Riley and Quinn, we also recognize that some areas need to be improved as we prepare for the future.”

The report contains information on actions taken by the PUC and the impacted utilities, primarily related to Winter Storm Riley, since the timing of Winter Storm Quinn only caused significant new outages in the Bucks County region of PECO, and those outages were restored relatively quickly.

This report contains information about ongoing steps, in addition to compiling and analyzing EDC data; examining complaints about the inability of customers to contact the EDC to report outages; and reviewing a lack of specific restoration information.

The report also makes 12 recommendations to the EDCs to address many concerns. The PUC will follow up on all recommendations.  The EDCs will be directed to report to PUC staff the progress or completion of all recommendations by September 2019. 

The recommendations include:

-- EDCs should continue their cooperation and communication with county 911 centers and emergency management agencies (EMAs) and continue to offer liaisons for expected major service outage events.

-- EDCs should meet with each county in their service territories at least annually to review emergency procedures and expectations for responses, road closures and the EDC liaison processes.

-- During significant weather events that may cause utility infrastructure to be involved in road closures, EDCs should work with county emergency management to ensure consensus on the priority of work in addressing public safety, which may be opening priority roads before addressing priority restoration.

-- EDCs should continue to collaborate on a best practice for managing estimated time of restoration (ETRs), especially during major service outage events. 

-- An informal reliability investigation of Met-Ed should be initiated for MetEd’s delay in initiating its damage assessment process, and in particular the damage assessment process for the quarantined circuits in Monroe and Pike counties.

-- The PUC suggests that it may be beneficial to hold a coordinating discussion with Emergency Support Function 1 – Transportation (ESF 1) primary and support agencies on the subject of closure and/or restrictions of certain vehicles on state roads during weather events, including a discussion of parameters of potential waivers, including hours of service waivers. 

-- While outside the jurisdiction of the Commission, the PUC’s Bureau of Technical Utility Services (TUS) recommends EDCs consider approaching the Pennsylvania Legislature for possible relief that will grant utility companies the authority to remove or trim danger trees that are off their existing right-of-way (ROW).  Such relief could be the ability to establish a wider ROW or allow utilities the authority to trim or remove trees that can potentially fall onto power conductors.

-- EDCs should work with local and county authorities on proactive measures to identify and remove off-ROW danger trees that can fall in to roads.  EDCs should also work with those same entities on ensuring the proper species of trees are planted within 60 feet of primary electrical conductors.

-- EDCs should consult with experts on climate, in particular the climate of Pennsylvania and the northeast, in order to understand the expected and/or potential impacts to utility infrastructure due to ongoing and projected climate changes.

-- EDCs should consider storm hardening and climate adaptation as programs to be addressed through modified or future long-term infrastructure improvement plans (LTIIPs).

-- EDCs that do not currently have LTIIPs, such as Pike County Light & Power, should consider the potential benefits to having an LTIIP and distribution system improvement charge (DSIC) as means to improve resiliency and reliability.  

-- The Bureau of Technical Utility Services will incorporate the following practices for future emergency events:

     -- PUC Agency Representatives (AREPs) will ask EDCs to report the counties that the EDCs have active liaisons deployed within the EDC outage reports.

     -- After 24 hours have passed from the onset of a weather disaster, PUC AREPs will poll the applicable PEMA Regional Offices for any coordination issues that impacted counties may be having with jurisdictional utilities.

     -- TUS will request the EDCs’ storm damage model predictions before potential high impact events, such as Riley.

     -- TUS will request a summary of the lessons learned from each EDC in regard to the EDCs’ after-action reviews.

After-action review meetings were held by the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA) and Pike County Emergency Management, as well as a public input session conducted by the Borough of Stroudsburg, and a hearing by the Pennsylvania House Majority Policy Committee. Met Ed also held a customer education workshop in East Stroudsburg.

Click Here for a copy of the report.

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[Posted: April 23, 2019]

4/29/2019