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Doug Bechtel
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I usually try to focus on the positive aspects of what is happening at OPALCO in these OPALCOGRAMS. Today I want to talk about the number of outages that we are experiencing.
In spite of the 33 outages during August, our system is not falling apart. I personally review every outage that occurs on our system. I know that outages are very important to our members and I want to make sure that we are taking appropriate remedial action to minimize the number and length of outages.
In the last two years, we have had 460 outages that have affected one or more members. The largest single cause of outages was trees and limbs, with 146 outages. The second largest number of outages was underground cable failure, with 106 failures. Coming in next - far down the list - were member caused (37), rodents and birds (36) and overload (23).
Twenty-two of the thirty-three outages in August were underground failures. We have discussed the problems with our old underground wire many times before, and I am pleased that most of our members understand the issues involved. The bad news is that the number of underground outages will continue to increase. The rest of the bad news is that each year when the ground gets wet in the fall, the number of underground outages increase appreciably. You can expect to see more underground outages over the next couple of months. Once the ground becomes wet, the number of underground outages drops off significantly and the winds start giving us fits with trees and limbs. Even though it is only September, it is important to start thinking about the winter and preparing for power outages.
On the good new side, our Storm Abatement Program continues to see impressive results in reducing the number of tree-related outages. Last winter, for the first time in my life, I actually had members call to tell me their lights were on while the wind was blowing. We continue to aggressively bury our power lines to protect our system from these winter storms.
We also continue to spend a lot of time (without much result) trying to reduce the number of outages on the mainland that affect us. If you have driven into Anacortes recently, you have probably noticed that progress, in the form of new home construction, in removing the trees that we have been so unsuccessful getting removed. Let’s cross our fingers and hope that we have a quiet winter and our outages are few and far between.
We continue to work with our telephone system so that we will be able to handle the large number of telephone calls we get when an outage occurs, and at least give a recorded message to those who do not need to talk to a live person.
Next time we will talk about more positive topics - mainly the recently completed update of OPALCO’s twenty year Long Range Plan.
Doug Bechtel
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