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Electric Utilities face Hurricane Readiness Questions

May 3rd, 2018 by Mike Vasilinda

Florida’s utility regulators have been grilling the states electric utilities and their biggest users over hurricane readiness for the last two days. The debate today, as Mike Vasilinda tells us, was over whether it was more cost effective to do a better job of trimming trees or bury lines underground to prevent outages.

Millions lost power when Hurricane Irma blanketed the entire state last fall. Now, both Duke Energy and FPL say they learned lessons from the storm.

Valerie Petterson is a Duke Energy Spokesperson.

“We’ve made some changes and upgrades and enhancements to our technology. We’re adding more people to respond to customers” Patterson told us during a break at the Public Service Commission. 

(We)“Modified our website. Improved it. rebuilt..reconfigured it in a way that’s going to be able to handle the traffic” said FPL’s Mark Bubriski.

The states major power users are asking regulators to make the utilities do more.

One of the questions raised at the commission, Are the utilities moving fast enough to replace old wooden poles with strong concrete structures?

Jon Moyle represents the Florida Industrial Power Users Group.

 

“Even though the wood is only twenty percent of the system, TECO, if I’m reading this correctly, had all the problems on the wooden transmission poles” Moyle told commissioners.

The Industrial users also want the companies to spend more trimming trees. But Duke Energy says tree trimming wasn’t the issue during Irma.

“A lot of the damage we saw from trees were from trees outside the rights of way” Duke’s Patterson told us.

 

Instead of trimming trees, Florida Retail Federation attorney Schef Wright says customers would be better off if power lines were underground.

“If we get a direct hit, they will more than pay for everything in one storm. And if you get two, you’ve rally saved a lot of money” says Wright.

Staff Recommendations to regulators are due by June 19th, nearly three weeks after hurricane season starts.

Because recommendations won’t be voted on until after Hurricane season starts, and big changes won’t be in place until sometime next year.

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