Warmer, calmer weather allows utility companies to evaluate their performance and set new goals for service reliability. On Long Island, the electric utility has chosen a simple objective it believes customers will appreciate: “perfect power.”
“Modern life grinds to a halt when we lose electricity in our homes or places of work, and we know how disruptive that can be,” said John O’Connell, vice president of electric operations for PSEG Long Island. “‘Perfect power’ is exactly the opposite of that experience. It means that you go all year without a sustained interruption to your electric service. We’re proud that 49 percent of our 1.1 million customers already enjoy perfect power and we’re working hard to raise that number to 100 percent.”
Achieving perfect power requires year-round work that includes a shorter tree-trimming cycle, strengthening and replacing old infrastructure and deploying new technologies.
In 2018, PSEG Long Island trimmed hazardous tree limbs along 3,000 miles of overhead lines, reducing outages on those circuits by 35 percent. A dedicated “Circuit Improvement Program” focused on neighborhoods where outages were known to occur, reducing outages on those circuits by 55 percent.
In addition to these improvements, the electric company is more than 80 percent finished with $729 million in system hardening and upgrades, including pole replacements, wire strengthening and substation elevating paid for by the Federal Emergency Management Administration.
New technology is also helping deliver perfect power to more of Long Island’s electric customers. Remote drones can now survey lines, identify weak spots in wires and equipment, allowing crews to replace them before they fail.
Of course, outages do occur, and PSEG Long Island works tirelessly to keep customers informed while it restores power as safely and quickly as possible through its online outage map, which includes estimated restoration times and crew locations, proactive website alerts and social media updates and safety tips. Also consider signing up for “MyAlerts” text notification service to get more personalized communications such as text or email alerts about outages affecting you, even if you didn’t report it.
When extreme weather does strike, a battle-tested storm plan is activated, starting with communicating with local governments, identifying urgent restoration priorities and utilizing mobile apps to rapidly deploy damage assessment teams and crews to restore power as soon as possible. If you need to report an outage, call 1-800-490-0075, text “Out” to PSEGLI (773454) or connect on Facebook and Twitter (@PSEGLI).
To learn more, visit psegliny.com/reliability.
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