TVEC members in an area north and northwest of Canton have experienced numerous outages over the last several weeks. And while no two outages are the same, we would like to help members understand the underlying conditions that have caused the unreliability and what we are doing to address it.  The letter below was sent to members on this circuit.

 

Dear TVEC Members,

 

I am writing to apologize for and offer some explanation for recent power outages and reliability issues that have been affecting your circuit. We try very hard to ensure the power is on and ready when you need it and share in the frustration that comes with the recent unreliability.

As the number of recurring outages for your circuit has gone up over the last few weeks, our operations team has been committing extra resources to assess, understand and correct any issues and return to the high level of service you should expect. Unfortunately, there is not one root cause for all of the outages that can be addressed simply or as quickly as we would like.

Here are some items our crews and engineers have found to be causes of outages and actions we are taking.

  • Ongoing power line upgrades and workers on the circuit and worker safety

Your circuit is currently being upgraded in several areas, including upgrading wire sizes and other equipment to serve increasing load.

Most electric line work and upgrades can be performed without interrupting electrical service, and that is always the goal. Occasionally, crews must take temporary outages to accomplish a specific task safely. This is rare and has not been the primary cause of outages in your area, but this has occurred.

However, worker safety is also paramount, and while workers are on the line, enhanced safety settings make it more likely that any small contact from trees, animals or other sources will cause the entire circuit to lose power.

As with all outages with unknown causes, crews must respond and ensure that no workers or members of the public are at risk before power is restored.

Ongoing work alone is not the cause of the outages, but it has made workday outages more likely when combined with the additional issues identified below.

  • Right-of-Way maintenance (tree trimming)

TVEC crews have recognized a need for additional right-of-way clearing on your circuit.

Our line crews, as well as contractor tree trimming crews have been working through particular “hot spots” of tree contact on your circuit in response to recent outages. A full clearing of our primary lines on your circuit is also underway.

Tree trimming the whole circuit will take several weeks, but when completed we expect this to lead to significantly improved power reliability.

Tree trimming is an ongoing effort across our entire electrical system, and we have recently invested in technology tools to help us be more proactive in effectively and efficiently targeting problem areas before seeing reliability issues.

  • Addressing additional line/equipment issues

One key for electrical reliability is ongoing maintenance and updating of electrical infrastructure, and our crews work on this year-round.

In response to the recent outages, multiple TVEC line maintenance crews have been tasked with a thorough inspection of equipment and line conditions on your circuit. Some equipment has been replaced or marked for replacement as soon as possible. Crews have also performed aggressive proactive maintenance operations in areas that have been identified as in need of work.

 

As we continue to work to improve the service reliability in your area, please know that we are listening to, and acting on your concerns. While we cannot guarantee that outages will not occur, we are doing everything we can to address these problems and get back to the reliable service we expect of ourselves, and that we owe to you, our co-op members.

 

Thank You,

Bobbi Byford

TVEC Director of Corporate Relations