Making progress

Communication, pruning need work

After months of reviewing how utilities performed during hurricanes Irma and Matthew and seeking public feedback, Florida’s Public Service Commission on Tuesday issued its final report.

And its conclusion was: Storm-hardening the electric grid works to reduce power outages.

Utility grids didn’t see the extensive damage during the last two hurricanes that they did in storm landfalls more than a decade ago, but there’s still work to be done, the commission said.

The length of utility power outages was reduced after the grids were strengthened after the destructive 2004-2005 storm season, with hardened parts of the electric grids performing better than non-hardened parts, according to regulators.

Outages in 2016’s Hurricane Matthew and 2017’s Hurricane Irma — the first real tests of the hardened grids — primarily resulted from falling trees, vegetation and debris from outside the utilities’ rights of way, the commission said.

The commission reviewed the performance of the five investor-owned utilities: Juno Beach-based Florida Power & Light Co., St. Petersburg-based Duke Energy Florida, Tampabased TECO Energy, Pensacola-based Gulf Power and Fernandina Beach-based Florida Public Utilities Co.

Chairman Art Graham said areas of improvement for the utilities include customer communications and tree-trimming coordination

with local governments.

The commission said it plans to initiate audits of how utilities estimate and communicate outage restoration times to customers and how utilities inspect and maintain their transmission structures. Despite inspection requirements, forensic analysis after Irma identified corrosion and wood rot as factors in the failure of some transmission towers.

The utility regulator suggested the state might want to consider a public education program on tree trimming as well as legislation to require inspection and hardening of power poles that are used by parties outside the electric utility, such as telecommunications companies.

Moving forward, the commission said it is requesting information on how utilities are working with local governments to address vegetation management issues and identify critical facilities for priority restoration after a storm knocks out power. It also will ask for more information on power-line undergrounding projects proposed by FPL and Duke Energy Florida.

FPL has said that Hurricane Irma showed underground main power lines are more resilient in general. The utility is planning a pilot program to put power lines underground in not-yet-identified neighborhoods in the state.

Forensic analysis after Irma identified corrosion and wood rot as factors in the failure of some transmission towers.