One of the major complaints we receive at the Public Service Commission deals with the reliability of service provided by utilities.
This is a particular concern when it comes to the delivery of electric power. Nobody likes to be left in the dark, or without heat in the winter, or air conditioning in the summer.
So, the Commission is looking forward to a report to be filed by the end of this year about the quality of electric service provided by Appalachian Power Company and Wheeling Power Company.
The companies and our legal staff jointly filed a petition last year to ask for an examination of their service. They want an independent, outside auditing firm to perform the work and make its findings known to the Commission.
We agreed and put that effort in motion.
The study involves six areas for review.
The first is staffing levels to determine whether existing personnel are sufficient to get the job done. The auditors will review the usage of contract workers to supplement permanent staffing to improve reliability in areas with excessive numbers of outages.
The study will look at service centers to determine if they provide optimal coverage to customers served from those locations.
Another part will look at how the utilities manage the operations of distributing systems, including how maintenance is prioritized.
The study should identify opportunities for improving the accuracy of the estimated time that customers are told when power can be expected to return.
The study will compare each utility’s distribution to the systems of similar utilities and provide recommendations on improvement and the cost of those modifications.
The last item asks the study to make recommendations for improvements on a short-term basis of up to three years, and on a longer-term basis.
It’s going to be a big job.
We feel confident this study will produce helpful dividends for the companies and their customers. It will give us a solid road map for future developments to improve this vital service.
In earlier testimony before the Commission, the companies explained some of the problems they face concerning reliability. They inherited, in many cases, aging and extensive coal camp power lines that were not geared toward the enormous loads now carried on them. The state’s rural nature makes coverage difficult and expensive. The state has mountainous and heavily forested terrain. Severe weather conditions also handicap the company’s efforts to maintain service.
The final report submission deadline is December 15.
