Investor-owned utilities continue coordinated Henri response
As Tropical Storm Henri made landfall Sunday morning in Rhode Island bringing heavy rain and inland flooding across parts of the Northeast, investor-owned electric companies and their partners worked through the night and continue efforts today to restore power to more than 130,000 customers.
Roughly 65,000 electricity customers remained without power as of earlier Monday, according to the Edison Electric Institute (EEI), which represents the nation’s investor-owned utilities.
Eversource, New England’s largest energy delivery company serving more than 3.6 million electric and natural gas customers in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, said that since Henri hit on Sunday, the company has restored power to nearly 60,000 customers.
“The majority of these outages were caused by hundreds of trees falling and damaging our equipment — like those that were outside of our trim zone or fell from across the road,” Eversource CT tweeted late Sunday.
In an update Monday, Eversource CT tweeted that it expects to have the vast majority of remaining customers restored by 11:59 p.m. Monday night, with many well before that. “Hardest hit areas — like Canterbury and Lisbon — may require more complex and time-consuming repairs,” the company tweeted.
The utility is following a detailed power restoration process. For example, once trees and debris are cleared and flood waters recede, crews will conduct damage assessments, the company said. Then, crews will work to restore power to essential services and facilities critical to public health and safety, and then will work to return service to the largest number of residential and business customers in the shortest amount of time. Once major repairs are completed, individual homes and smaller groups of customers are restored.
Eversource CT tweeted late on Sunday that “the devastating impacts of insect infestation and drought on the health of CT’s canopy are apparent during storms like #Henri. With soil saturated from the heavy rain, we expect to continue responding to outages caused by trees uprooting and falling onto our electric system.”
Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont said during a press conference that his administration pushed the utilities to be over-prepared for Tropical Storm Henri. “And it is paying off,” Lamont tweeted. “Hats off to those utility workers and linemen who braved the gusty winds and pouring rain to restore power.”
In Massachusetts, for instance, Eversource tweeted that as of 5 p.m. on Sunday, it had restored power to more than 9,000 customers since Henri arrived in the state and continues working to restore power for the approximately 1,110 additional customers statewide.
“Areas of Massachusetts have experienced tropical storm-force winds and heavy rain today, bringing down trees onto power lines and causing damage to the electric system,” said Eversource Vice President of Electric Operations Doug Foley. “As with all storms, we prepared for a worst-case scenario and as forecast models changed, we made adjustments and will adjust as necessary moving forward. Our crews will continue working hard to restore power as quickly and safely as possible, until all of our customers have power.”
The company noted that additional isolated outages remain possible as the storm and its remnants linger in New England through today.
Meanwhile, Eversource NH thus far has restored power to more than 3,700 customers, with the majority of the outages also caused by high winds and fallen trees, according to the company.
And the publicly traded National Grid plc, which provides New York, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts with natural gas and electricity, reported that nearly 4,000 field personnel are responding to power outages caused by Henri and crews are responding to emergency 911 and wires-down calls, assessing damage, clearing trees and making repairs to electric infrastructure where conditions are safe.
The London, England-based utility tweeted on Sunday that it has “restored power to over 72.7k customers in the New England region, & will continue restoration work as conditions are deemed safe.”
The investor-owned utilities also have had outside help in their Henri response efforts.
EEI reported on Friday that more than 13,500 workers from at least 31 states, the District of Columbia, and Canada mobilized and were strategically prepositioned to support power restoration efforts.
“Crews will work around the clock to restore power as quickly as possible when and where they can, provided it is safe to do so,” EEI said in an Aug. 20 statement. “They also will be following additional safety protocols required by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic to keep themselves and customers safe.”
Support includes thousands of line, tree and service workers, troubleshooters, and damage assessors to help make repairs and restore power to customers. At the same time, remote system operators are using technology like smart switches to isolate outages and remotely reroute power for customers.
Some 300 Indiana Michigan Power (I&M) employees and contractors, for example, answered the call for mutual assistance ahead of Henri’s landfall in New England and I&M crews are helping Eversource’s Connecticut restoration efforts.
“Being able to lend a helping hand to those who have been impacted by mother-nature is a cornerstone of our company,” said Steve Baker, I&M president and chief operating officer. “I’m grateful and proud of I&M employees who are answering the call to serve those in the path of this storm.”
AEP Energy, a subsidiary of American Electric Power and one of the largest electric energy wholesale suppliers in the United States, also has been involved, providing “boots on the ground” in South Windsor, Conn., where “AEP Ohio teams arrived in the area this afternoon, joining thousands of crews from across the country called in to help #EversourceCT,” AEP Ohio tweeted.
Additionally, more than 100 Georgia Power personnel traveled to Hartford, Conn., including linemen and engineers, as well as safety, fleet and logistics support, and a number of contract crews to support the Henri response.
The Atlanta-based Georgia Power is part of a mutual assistance network of hundreds of utilities from around the country that monitor changing weather around the clock and coordinate with other utilities to field requests for assistance while ensuring that it has sufficient coverage to respond to potential local service interruptions.
Likewise, Atlanta-based Southern Company, which serves some nine million electric and gas customers nationwide, contributed more than 700 personnel from all three of its electric operating companies under the mutual assistance network to help restore power in the Northeast.
Federal support also is ongoing, according to EEI.
“We know how important electricity is, and our entire industry stands ready to support impacted companies and the power restoration mission,” EEI Vice President of Security and Preparedness Scott Aaronson said on Friday. “The CEO-led Electricity Subsector Coordinating Council, including our government partners at the Department of Energy, Department of Homeland Security, and National Security Council, are coordinating closely to support the ongoing preparation and staging activities, as well as the movement of mutual assistance crews.”
