Feb. 15, 2008

 

The Lincoln Electric System Administrative Board held its regular monthly meeting Feb. 15. Items from the meeting, as well as other pertinent information, include the following:

 

Storms Push 2007 Electrical Outage Numbers Higher

 

Four major storms in 2007 resulted in average outage time per customer that was among the highest in recent years, according to Lincoln Electric System (LES) Vice President of Operations Neil Engelman at Friday’s (2/15) meeting of the LES Administrative Board.

The total average amount of time LES customers were without electricity in 2007 was 42.5 minutes, he said. Four storms last year comprised 23.2 minutes of the total average time.

Electrical outages caused by nature comprised 55 percent of outages in 2007, he said, representing the largest category of reasons why customers lost electric service. The largest single cause of outages was trees at 124, with lightning knocking out power in 107 instances. In 2006, when there were no large storms, outages caused by trees totaled only 38, he said, and there were 37 lightning-related outages.

LES tree trimming crews visit trees near power lines about every four years to cut away branches that could fall and cause an outage, Engelman said. Even though trees are trimmed six feet away from LES lines, he said last year’s August 20-21 storm with 80 mph winds broke many trees at the trunk, which then fell into the lines.

Squirrels frequently are the reason for most outages, but in 2007 they created 49 outages, ranking as the fourth highest reason for outages, compared to 97 outages in 2006. Engelman attributed the significant drop to a more aggressive effort to place squirrel guards on LES equipment.

“Every year, our engineers evaluate all failures and note any trends in case LES needs to replace cables that are nearing the end of their life expectancy,” he said.

Of the total 584 total outages in 2007, 156 were blinks, or instantaneous outages.

Engelman pointed out that the average outage time per customer was below LES’ service reliability goal of 60 minutes or less.

Vehicle accidents caused 15 outages, up by 50 percent over the 2006 total. Accidental cuts of underground lines totaled 13, which continue a downhill slide since hitting a peak of 25 outages in 2004. LES educates the public and contractors about calling the Diggers Hotline (811 or 1-800-331-5666) before digging to request that utilities locate underground lines, he said.

Engelman said LES also uses an infrared thermographic scanner to identify equipment that may be about to fail and could cause an outage. Of the potential problems identified by infrared scanning, 160 were repaired, which avoided an outage or a probable longer time that customers would have been without electricity.

“Together, LES’ tree trimming and infrared programs have been successful in reducing the number of outages caused by trees and loose connections and failing equipment,” he said. “Of all the uncertainty the weather throws at us, these are situations that we do have some control over and are able to take preventive measures to avoid future problems.”

 

Board Members Assigned to Committees

 

Administrative Board Chair Ron Melbye announced committee appointments at the February Board meeting. The Board chair is an ex-officio member of each committee.

 

Personnel & Organization Patty McManus, Chair Dawn Rockey Richard Evnen	Finance & Audit Dawn Rockey, Chair Tom Schleich Pat Beans
Operations & Power Supply Tom Schleich, Chair Richard Evnen Tony Marquez	Budget & Rates Kathy Campbell, Chair Tony Marquez Pat Beans
Legislation & Governmental Affairs Dawn Rockey, Chair Richard Evnen Marilyn McNabb	Communications & Marketing Kathy Campbell, Chair Patty McManus Marilyn McNabb
Labor Negotiations Tony Marquez Tom Schleich

Other Reports

 

The following statistics for January 2008 were presented to the Board:

 

January 2008	January 2007	Change
Number of Customers
127,301	125,339	+1,962 (+1.6%)
Retail Electricity Use (MWh)
282,307	270,814	+11,493 (+4.2%)
12-Month Average Outage Time/Customer (minutes)
42	18.6	+23.4

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