Smarter Rights-of-Way

Not just Mother Nature to blame for PPL's third-worst power outage - The Morning Call

photo: Jessical Hill (AP)

Mother Nature may have been the primary cause of the widespread power outages last weekend that left about 400,000 customers of PPL Electric Utilities in the cold and dark.

But interviews with PPL officials and public utility experts suggest some very human decisions also played a key role in the third-worst power outage in the company's history:

• PPL has been using decades-old easements that are too narrow to protect major power lines. The storm felled 10 69-kilovolt transmission lines, darkening thousands of homes.

• A tree-trimming plan adopted in the 1990s that is better for trees and popular with customers also leaves distribution lines vulnerable to falling limbs and sagging branches.

• Like most other domestic utility companies, PPL has chosen to keep utility lines above ground, saying it would cost ratepayers too much to bury the lines, where they would not be threatened by wind and snow. In Europe, however, utilities in a number of countries have worked cooperatively to put lines underground, following street and highway rights of way.


Taking on a leafy villain - Boston Globe

Trees that provide shade and beauty under normal weather conditions turned treacherous during last weekend’s fall snowstorm. Lush vegetation combined with wet, heavy snow caused limbs to fall on power lines, leaving hundreds of thousands of residents shivering in the darkness for days. Without a more aggressive tree-pruning regimen, there is probably no way to reduce the likelihood of another severe outage.

Utilities, tree wardens, and nature-loving homeowners have been sparring with one another for years. Power companies enjoy rights-of-way to trim trees near power lines. But state law also gives sign-off authority to local tree wardens when it comes to cutting or removing shade trees on public land. The two trimming authorities don’t always see eye to eye. Homeowners, meanwhile, can be ferocious when it comes to protecting their trees, even forcing utility companies to suspend pruning operations.