PECO returns to normal following nor’easter

PHILADELPHIA » PECO is deactivating its Emergency Response Organization after Winter Storm Toby left the PECO service territory, and is now back to normal operations. The storm brought heavy rain, snow and wind beginning Wednesday morning and continuing through early Thursday morning.

In preparation for potential storm impacts, PECO activated its Emergency Response Organization on Wednesday morning and mobilized all 2,600 PECO employees, including field and back office personnel. PECO’s Exelon sister utility, ComEd in Illinois, also dispatched crews to assist in the mid-Atlantic region and additional contractor crews were secured through mutual assistance organizations.

Although the storm was a significant weather occurrence, the impact on PECO customers was limited with only scattered outages occurring across the PECO service territory. PECO invests more than $500 million each year to enhance its system infrastructure through preventive maintenance and equipment upgrades. And through PECO’s System 2020 plan, the company is investing an additional $274 million to install advanced equipment and reinforce the local electric system, making it more weather resistant and less vulnerable to storm damage.

“These infrastructure investments are a critical part of PECO’s storm response efforts,” said Craig Adams, president and CEO. “It’s been a rough patch of bad weather these past few weeks, so we’re pleased that our customers did not experience significant outages as a result of this particular storm.”

As part of ongoing mutual assistance efforts, PECO expects to send 250 personnel to support Exelon sister utility, Atlantic City Electric, in their customer restoration efforts in New Jersey.