At PPL Electric Utilities, we’ve been watching with great interest the debate surrounding the future of nuclear power.
Proposed legislation currently circulating within the Pennsylvania General Assembly would require electric utilities to purchase as much as 50 percent of customer demand from nuclear energy as part of a new mandate under Pennsylvania’s Alternative Energy Portfolio Standards Act.
We’re asking the General Assembly to seriously consider the broad impact and the unintended ramifications this aggressive proposal would have on all of our 1.4 million customers.
The conversation surrounding how to achieve long-term market-based solutions to reducing carbon is essential to Pennsylvania’s energy future. Our parent company, Pennsylvania-based PPL Corporation, supports efforts to advance a cleaner energy future and has committed reducing its carbon emissions 70 percent from 2010 levels by 2050. Additionally, PPL Electric Utilities has begun to undertake several projects that promote greater incorporation and growth of carbon-free energy sources, such as solar, onto our grid.
No one disputes that nuclear energy is carbon-free, but don’t confuse narrow nuclear subsidy proposals with efficient and effective economy-wide, market-based efforts to move the state toward a low carbon future.
This proposal, if adopted, will make Pennsylvania less competitive, impacting every electric customer in Pennsylvania and raising the average price of electricity in the state for years to come. We have estimated that our customers, alone, will pay $140 million more each year to rescue a single energy source that already benefits from an existing robust market.
If electricity customers are asked to bear this burden, customers should expect, and legislators should require that regulators have oversight. As a regulated utility, PPL Electric Utilities is required to open its books to the state’s Public Utility Commission and demonstrate a financial need before we can adjust the rates we charge to customers. Nuclear plant owners who are asking our state government to give them customer-funded financial assistance should be required to do the same. Recent draft proposals do not include this much needed requirement and also provide a subsidy for plants that are profitable.
This issue has been the focus of limited discussions for well over two years. It is only recently that proponents have turned up the heat on the General Assembly to act swiftly. Lawmakers should not fall for the “crisis” label that has been intentionally created by the bill proponents.
We’re asking lawmakers to take their time and properly vet this issue through the process — hold hearings, call in all stakeholders and most importantly, demand numbers from those advocating for this measure. Consider seeking independent audits or financial verification from outside resources available to the General Assembly.
In the end, lawmakers need to strongly consider whether hiding a nuclear bailout in customers’ electricity bills is necessary and the best course to moving Pennsylvania forward.
Drones are more than just an innovative way to patrol and review electric delivery lines. They can be an innovative tool to help string them, too.
At least twice in recent weeks, our employees have turned to the unmanned aerial vehicles as a way to help with challenging line restoration work.
During recovery from the March 2 nor’easter, crews used a drone to help with a difficult job in the Shohola, Pike County, area. Crews had to get a line through a 1,200-foot section of ravine, with a downed tree blocking the right of way.
Regional Design Supervisor Bill Farber remembered hearing that Regional Design Supervisor Phil Brant had used a drone to help string lines during restoration work in Puerto Rico. A drone was used there on three separate occasions to fly a pulling string across inaccessible areas ranging from 150 to 500 feet across. Crews were then able to use the string flown in by the drone to pull line across the inaccessible areas.
Just as he did in Puerto Rico, Brant used a drone to fly a piece of line across the 1,200-foot ravine, proving PPL can achieve flights of greater length with continued success.
While other methods can be used to pull string through inaccessible areas, drones offer a more controlled, precise and safe way to do so.
“Using drones for this purpose can save the company money and help us get lines rebuilt more quickly,” Farber said.
A drone also proved to be the right solution to a different weather-related challenge in the Harrisburg region.
In the Newport area, a single-phase line crosses Sherman Creek, which has an island in the middle. During the week of March 12, a tree on the island fell and took down the line.
The creek was too swollen for crews to wade across. So Field Supervisor Andy Breault reached out to Senior Engineer Tom Grosz, asking whether the drone used at the Lancaster Service Center might be usable.
The method was the same: Support Engineer Eric Resch attached a rope to the drone and flew it across the creek. The crew then used the rope to pull a new line across the creek. The drone flight took just 10 minutes for setup and five minutes to fly, Resch said.
“I flew the drone past the crew, and the rope dropped off the drone and pretty well landed right in their hands,” he said.
Of course, power line inspections continue to be the primary use for drones. But the aerial vehicles also are proving their worth in other ways.
Updated at 11 a.m. Friday (3/2): Today’s nor’easter with its high winds is causing a lot of damage throughout our service area, and more bad weather is to come. There are many individual repair locations, so some outages may be prolonged. We urge customers to prepare for that possibility.
We don’t yet have restoration times for specific locations but will provide that info when we can.
Hundreds of PPL employees and contractors are working to fight the effects of this storm. We’ll work as quickly and safely as we can to restore power and will keep you informed as the storm develops.
In the meantime, please stay safe. Stay clear of downed lines and report them ASAP to 1-800-DIAL-PPL. And report any outages at 1-800-DIAL-PPL or www.pplelectric.com/outage.
Our investments in our network have significantly reduced storm-related outages, while also making our grid more resilient and secure. A few examples:
Our innovative smart grid technology has restored power to more than 190,000 customers since it went live in early 2016. It has also reduced storm-related outages by 20 percent. The smart grid automatically senses a power outage and reroutes power around the damage, restoring service for many customers within minutes.
There was a 76 percent reduction in lightning-related outages on transmission lines from 2012-17 because of investments in lightning protection.
Tree-caused outages continue to decrease. Trees are the leading cause of storm-related outages. We clear trees along more than 10,000 miles of power lines each year, and we’ll continue this comprehensive work to keep reducing outages.
That said, severe weather — like 60-mph winds, ice storms, heavy snow or lightning — can still cause outages. Here are some storm tips to help you prepare and respond to any problems.
Before the storm hits, make sure your cell phones and other personal devices are fully charged.
Also, make sure your PPL Alerts are set up so you receive outage or other info when and how you want it. We’ll send you the latest updates by phone, email, text or all three. Setting your preferences is as simple as going to www.pplelectric.com/alerts. (You’ll need to have an online account with us.)
Report any outages by calling 1-800-DIAL-PPL (342-5775) or by visiting www.pplelectric.com/outage. Don’t assume someone else has reported the outage.
Stay away from any downed lines and always assume the line is still energized. Call us immediately at 1-800-DIAL-PPL to report the line and keep pets and kids away.
If you have to run a generator, make sure you run it outdoors in a well-ventilated area — never indoors or in a garage.
Use flashlights, not candles, to reduce fire risk.
More storm and outage safety and prep tips can be seen here.
If you own a business, it means that your computers, machinery, or cash registers can always be counted on to work when things are busiest.
At home, it means your personal space can always be relied on to be well-lit and comfortable, and the electricity-driven items that make your life easier are always doing their jobs when you want them.
Reliable electricity even makes a difference when you’re out on the road. It powers streetlights, traffic lights and crossing signals that make travel safe and orderly.
Strong electric service touches just about everything you do, everywhere you go. That’s why we’re proud to say that PPL Electric Utilities’ reliability in 2017 was our strongest on record.
In recent years we’ve been installing smart grid technology, using data analytics to improve equipment maintenance and replacement, replacing older poles and equipment with strong newer models, doing comprehensive clearing of vegetation along power lines, installing better protection against damage from lightning strikes, and more.
The result? Our customers experienced 550,000 fewer interruptions in 2017 than they did 10 years before. In fact, PPL Electric Utilities customers now experience some of the best electric reliability in the country: PPL ranks in the top 11 percent of utilities nationwide in terms of the lowest average number of outages per customer, according to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
You might have noticed this reliability during the extreme cold of January. Our system handled high demand and cold temperatures without missing a beat. That’s our goal any time extreme weather arrives, whether it’s winter cold or summer heat.
What’s next? Well, we continue to invest in improving our grid. There are always places where we can improve – places where the system can be strengthened or made more flexible. We continue to trim trees, rebuild power lines, replace old poles, and more.
We’ll never be able to completely banish outages – especially after high winds, ice storms or other natural menaces.
But we’re committed to continued improvement. Because we know that whether you’re at work, at home or on the road, you count on us to deliver.
As morning TV watchers might have noticed, we hosted — and hoisted — a special visitor at our Lancaster Service Center early in the morning of Monday, June 12.
Drew Anderson, weatherman at WMPT Fox 43 in York, met with Regional Operations Director Dana Ferber for a series of live shots during the station’s morning program — including one from a bucket truck. We were pleased to have the chance to talk with Drew about safety, reliability and other topics.
For those who couldn’t tune in on the day, here are a few snapshots:
Drew (who wears a hard hat well) used cups of coffee and cold water for a demonstration of infrared cameras. We use infrared cameras for line and equipment inspections — “hot spots” may be a sign of problems that we can fix before they turn into outages.
We use drones for some line inspections as well, as Drew and Dana discussed here.
More from the hot-vs.-cold infrared demonstration.
On one of the hottest mornings of the year so far, Drew put on some of the safety gear worn by our line workers for a taste of what it’s like to work in the field.
Dana explains the importance of safety in all we do.
Getting a firsthand look of the line worker’s life, Drew, Dana and a cameraman go up in bucket trucks for a live broadcast.
More from the live broadcast — going on the air, from up in the air.
