Pennsylvania proposes service outage guidelines

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Related Documents Industry Document "Joint Statement of Commissioner Kim Pizzingrilli and Vice Chairman Tyrone J. Christy" presented on 11/6/2009 Industry Document "PUC Initiates Rulemaking Process, Proposes Policy Statement to Improve Responses to Large-Scale Service Outages" presented on 11/6/2009

Related Articles 9/25/2008 Pennsylvania to evaluate utility storm response

To improve utility response to large-scale service outages, Pennsylvania regulators initiated a rulemaking Nov. 6 and proposed a policy statement.

The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission voted 4-0 to begin the rulemaking process to amend existing regulations regarding service outages and reportable accidents. The commission also proposed a policy statement designed to provide guidance about the types of public notice necessary.

The moves are tied to widespread power outages more than a year ago. In September 2008, storms knocked out power to more than 450,000 customers in western Pennsylvania. The storms, formed by remnants of Hurricane Ike and a cold front, swept through the area Sept. 14 and Sept. 15 with winds up to 80 mph. Some customers did not have power restored until Sept. 22, the PUC said.

Soon after, the commission initiated an investigation to evaluate electric utility service storm response, service restoration and customer communications practices. In April, the PUC released a report that summarized the findings of the investigation and recommended revisions to existing regulations and the adoption of a new policy statement.

The proposed amendments are intended to enhance service outage response, reporting and restoration practices, PUC Vice Chairman Tyrone Christy and Commissioner Kim Pizzingrilli said in a joint statement about the rulemaking.

The proposed amendments address accidents involving injury for the electric, natural gas, water and wastewater industries, service outages and the ability to capture more reportable events, such as cybersecurity attacks and events that involved damages to a utility company by another utility company. The amendments also deal with deadlines for reporting accidents; the expansion of a provision about reporting service outages to include sustained outages; and reports to track the number of utility workers, contract and mutual aid workers assigned to repair work.

Meanwhile, the proposed policy statement will implement the report's recommendation that the PUC adopt a uniform policy for incident management and communications with customers during significant electric service outages. The proposed statement includes a series of acceptable methods for improving the timeliness and effectiveness of notice to customers during an outage, the commission said.

While the statement applies to electric distribution utilities, the PUC is seeking comment about whether it should also apply to natural gas, water and wastewater.

The proposed statement is designed to establish acceptable forms of notification to reflect technological advances; have the utilities strive to adopt the National Incident Management System and its public information system; ensure crisis communications plans are in writing and consistent with NIMS; and encourage utilities to work across geographic regions if applicable.

The commission said interested parties have 30 days from publication in the Pennsylvania Bulletin to comment.