ALLENTOWN, Pa., Aug. 5,
2015 /PRNewswire/ -- PPL Electric Utilities customers never
even knew it, but nearly 200,000 power outages were prevented
during the first six months of 2015 thanks to work the utility is
doing to make its delivery system more reliable.
"Our investments are really paying off for our customers," said
Greg Dudkin, president of PPL
Electric Utilities. "As we continue to use technology and harden
our system even further, people will enjoy even more reliability in
the future."
PPL Electric Utilities has been installing smart grid
technology, working harder to keep trees away from lines, and
putting in stronger poles and wires – all with the goal of
preventing power outages for the three million people in its
service territory. The company is investing more than $1 billion per year in this work.
On average, customers are having 20 percent fewer power outages
than they did in 2007. And, with the additional work planned,
reliability is expected to improve by at least another 20 percent
in the next five years.
"Our 2,300 employees work hard every day to provide excellent
value for our customers," Dudkin said. "People depend on us, and we
deliver."
To calculate the number of power outages that were avoided in
the first half of this year, company reliability engineers looked
at historical outage data over a four-year period, 2008 through
2011. This period was before PPL Electric Utilities began
significant increased investment in technology, storm-resistant
equipment and better tree trimming.
They projected that four-year outage trend forward, estimating
how many outages there would have been in the first half of this
year if no additional improvement were made to the system. Then,
they compared that number to the actual number of outages PPL
Electric Utilities customers had so far this year.
The conclusion: smart grid and other work to prevent power
outages meant that residents and business owners were spared the
inconvenience of 190,765 outages in the first half of 2015,
compared to the same period in 2008 through 2011.
PPL Electric Utilities provides electric delivery service to
more than 1.4 million homes and businesses in Pennsylvania and ranks among the best utility
companies in the country for customer service and reliability. With
2,300 employees, PPL Electric Utilities is a major employer in the
communities it serves. It is a subsidiary of PPL Corporation (NYSE:
PPL). For more information visit www.pplelectric.com.
Note to Editors: Visit our media website at
www.pplnewsroom.com for additional news
and background about PPL Corporation.
Contact: Paul Wirth,
610-774-5997
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SOURCE PPL Electric Utilities