FPL says communication system fixes continue
Florida Power & Light Co. on Wednesday told state regulators that underground electric utilities worked well during 2017’s Hurricane Irma, and that the utility has improved but is still working on its customer communications systems.
FPL took part in a two-day workshop in Tallahassee, presented by the Florida Public Service Commission, which was designed to review the preparedness and restoration actions of FPL and other state public utilities in last September’s storm and 2016’s Hurricane Matthew.
FPL took 10 days to restore power in the state after Irma, which made landfall in the Middle Keys and then swept north through the state, knocking out power to 90 percent of the utility’s customers.
The commission had a public docket open to comments from Oct. 3 to May 1. Tom Ballinger, the commission staff ’s director of the engineering division, said 700 customers of the state’s electric utilities filed comments and that nearly 11 percent of the comments were “positive” about utilities’ performance during Irma.
Those comments, plus inquiries sent to the utilities by the commission staff, showed that efforts to harden the state’s electric grid “have worked” to minimize damage to the system, Ballinger said. He said impediments to power restoration were debris removal and local traffic and fuel issues.
FPL’s Bryan Olnick, president of distribution operations, told commissioners its underground equipment worked so well in hurricanes Matthew and Irma that FPL’s goal is to have the entire distribution system “hardened or placed underground by 2024.” He said that effort will begin with an “undergrounding pilot” program to put certain lateral lines or neighborhood power lines underground in sites throughout the state.
“What we’re proposing over the next several years is several hundred miles of laterals [underground] … and trying to test different construction methods,” Olnick said. “We’ll have to go to customers and say, ‘We want to underground. Will you let us?’ ”
In response to a commission staff question on Wednesday, Olnick said FPL plans to spread the cost of the undergrounding pilot “across the entire market base since the market base is the beneficiary.” He said details would be filed next March.
Communications issues during and after Hurricane Irma were a major workshop topic during FPL’s presentation.
Without ever mentioning the Rehabilitation Center of Hollywood Hills, where 12 patients died after Hurricane Irma, Commissioner Donald Polmann asked what the commission could do to improve “the sticky relationship” between local county and emergency operations officials on prioritizing restoration.
Olnick said FPL meets with local representatives to determine each county’s priority list for restoration, beyond its own. ”We just completed that process once again,” he told commissioners.
Commissioner Julie Brown asked about communications issues with customers who complained they didn’t get accurate restoration times or information after Irma.
“These customers want to know when they can come back to their homes,” said Brown, referring to homeowners who evacuated Florida and were checking on when they could return home by calling FPL or through its website and mobile app.
Olnick said FPL’s “power tracker” website and app failed during Irma because it was overwhelmed with as many as 5 million calls. “Our mobile app system was up and running — except for 10 minutes we had to take it down to reboot — but it was not providing the most accurate information sometimes,” he said.
FPL’s app “works great on a dayto-day basis” but had too much information customers don’t care about during a storm, he said, so FPL is looking at how to “trim that down during a storm.”
“We’ve completed our initial system improvements,” Olnick told regulators. He said the online and mobile system now has capacity “beyond the volumes we experienced during Hurricane Irma.”
Olnick said FPL has smart meters to tell where the power is on or off, but customers may not get accurate information when too many of the devices are being contacted at once.
Commission chairman Art Graham asked whether FPL had sought “mutual aid” to better communicate with customers.
Olnick said FPL did arrange for a utility on the nation’s west coast to help with customer calls after Irma. “We did reach out to other utilities. That will be a standard practice in the future,” he said.
In terms of power restoration, FPL said “wrong trees in the wrong place” were the primary cause of Irma-related outages.
Olnick said FPL would like to see a change in state laws and local ordinances to adopt and enforce “Right Tree, Right Place,” to ensure trees aren’t planted too close to lines and equipment and allow FPL access to remove those trees.
Brown said she sees “vegetation management” as the biggest issue in speeding restoration. Olnick said some local governments have been helpful in enacting or enforcing tree planting ordinances, while others oppose it and are “planting trees right back under our lines as we speak,” he said.
The hurricane workshop continues on Thursday beginning at 9:30 a.m. The workshop is being streamed on the commission’s website, floridapsc.com. Click on “Watch Live Broadcast.”
mpounds@sunsentinel.com