PR-08-173 -- PSC Staff Issues Reports On Electric Service Restoration Efforts After December Ice Storms

Contact: Kevin Kelly (573) 751-9300

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -- JUNE 19, 2008

JEFFERSON CITY---The staff of the Missouri Public Service Commission has concluded in reports filed with the commission that the four Missouri investor-owned electric utilities had storm restoration plans in place and that those plans were executed in restoring power to customers who lost power due to a series of ice storms in December 2007. 

The PSC staff states that while Kansas City Power & Light, Aquila, Inc., AmerenUE and The Empire District Electric Company did a good job restoring power considering the severity and widespread nature of the ice storms, there are areas where improvements can be made.

In particular, staff has recommended the companies improve communication efforts with customers during a storm related outage.  That includes improved communications with customers through call center operations and company web sites, with city and county officials and the media.  During a storm outage, call centers serve a critical function as they often serve as the primary means for customers to contact the utility company.

The Public Service Commission recently adopted three rules designed to increase electric service reliability in Missouri.  Rules regarding tree-trimming, infrastructure inspection standards and service reliability are scheduled to take effect this summer.  The PSC staff notes that those new rules should have an impact on future service reliability and storm impacts.

Each electric company has different tree-trimming cycles for urban and rural areas.  However, the new rules will require all companies to conduct tree-trimming on a four year cycle in urban areas and six years in rural areas.  The new rules also require visual inspections of facilities at least once every two years in the urban areas and at least once every three years in rural areas.  In addition, companies are required to make a diligent attempt to notify all property owners or occupants that may be affected by planned vegetation management.

All of the electric utilities did a self-evaluation of storm preparation plans and power restoration efforts after the December ice storms.  The PSC staff is recommending the companies follow up on the results of those evaluations. 

The PSC staff states there is a benefit for all the electric companies to review the storm experiences and outage restoration activities of each of the four regulated Missouri electric companies.  These reports, staff says, may contain practices and procedures that could be beneficial for future storm responses and general utility operations.  The PSC staff also recommends a roundtable meeting be held with all of the electric companies to evaluate best practices for storm restoration.

According to the staff reports, all of the electric companies performed various tasks in preparation of the ice storms days before the storms hit.  Because the ice storms hit other areas of the Midwestern states before Missouri, the PSC staff reports reflect that the availability of contractors and mutual assistance support was limited for the four Missouri utility companies. 

Some of the recommendations by the PSC staff for each electric company include:  

The Empire District Electric Company: Approximately 65,000 customers lost power for some period of time during the storms, but the greatest impact occurred in and around Joplin, which has some of the greatest population densities for Empire’s service territory. 

PSC staff recommendations for Empire include:

• Evaluate the addition of hold messages at regular intervals to callers in the queue to inform them that they are still in the queue and their call will be answered as soon as possible.  Callers are not currently informed of their progress while waiting in queue.
• Develop and implement policies and procedures to ensure that outages are closed quickly in the field which would enable the call centers to relay information to customers in a timely manner.
• Continue to design and upgrade the outage map on its web site and develop capabilities to report the number of outages by state.
• Assign responsibility for coordinating communication efforts among company personnel so that company representatives and call center agents give consistent information to customers regarding the outage.
• Establish a list of contacts, with backups, for the small communities in Empire’s service territory.  In addition, evaluate assigning a special Empire contact person in the event of emergencies to city or EOC officials in its service territory.

 AmerenUE: Approximately 96,891 customers were affected by the two waves of ice and sleet precipitation.  The hardest hit portions of the state for AmerenUE were in the Jefferson City/Mid-Missouri area and the areas to the northeast through western Warren County and across Lincoln and Pike counties.

Recommendations in the PSC staff report include:

• Review its communications plan to develop a process to aid in delivering an effective message to customers, city, county and state officials.
• Develop and utilize a community outreach function to participate with city and county agencies to assist citizens that have special needs in an outage.

In addition, AmerenUE contracted with an outside consulting firm (KEMA) to review its storm restoration efforts. The PSC staff has recommended AmerenUE schedule a presentation with the commission to discuss the report and the company’s anticipated actions in response to the recommendations contained in the report.

 Kansas City Power & Light Company: Approximately 54,558 customers were affected by the December 10-11, 2007 ice storms.

Recommendations by the PSC staff include:

• KCP&L should evaluate its communications with customers, state government agencies during significant customer interruption events.
• Ensure that the Customer Care Center maintains an adequate number of representatives and develops contingency plans to address demands associated with major outages.
• Evaluate the information provided to the Customer Care representatives that is given to customers during storms.
• The company should also develop a database of information to “enhance its relationship with the Red Cross and other agencies.”
• Continue working on “self-identified improvement opportunities,” such as web site improvements and computer system hardware and software upgrades. 

Aquila, Inc.: Approximately 84,000 customers lost power for some period of time during the storms, but the greatest storm impact occurred in Aquila’s north region, which includes St. Joseph, Maryville, Tarkio, Mound City and other communities.  In the north region, Aquila states approximately 62,000 customers were without power at some period because of the ice storms that occurred December 10, 2007 through December 11, 2007.

PSC staff report recommendations for Aquila include:

• Review the maximum call allowed value on all toll-free numbers at the on-set of future outages and periodically throughout outages to minimize the occurrence of blocked calls.
• Review opportunities to improve the call-back system during system outages by utilizing secondary phone numbers such as cell phone or employment phone numbers.
• Review call center outage scripts to determine if opportunities for improvement may exist in providing customer specific instructions after service has been restored.
• Review and evaluate company web site for improvements including improved correspondence of city and town populations to outage data.
• Review procedures for commitments and communication to assist local governments.  Provide city and county with current secondary phone numbers and key storm-related personnel changes as a means to access appropriate utility personnel during system outages or during other critical events.

Each report can be viewed on the PSC web site www.psc.mo.gov .

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