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PSC questions trimming effort

St. Petersburg's Progress Energy Florida says it trims vegetation less frequently because it cuts more at once.

By LOUIS HAU
Published August 2, 2005

Progress Energy Florida Inc. has been proud of its recent record of improving service reliability and reducing the number and duration of customer power outages.

But according to data compiled by the staff of the Florida Public Service Commission, the St. Petersburg utility appears to be falling short in one important and high-profile area: trimming trees away from neighborhood power lines.

Progress reported a decline last year in vegetation-related power outages along its network of distribution lines, power lines that deliver electricity from substations to local neighborhoods. But the total number of such outages was still 15 percent higher than in 2000, when Progress was formed through Carolina Power & Light's takeover of Florida Progress Corp.

The report comes a year after tree trimming became a sensitive issue in hurricane-beleaguered Florida, with many customers complaining that the state's electric utilities had not adequately pruned vegetation ahead of last year's storms.

Last week, the PSC staff noted that Progress has been trimming trees along fewer miles of its major distribution lines than before. The staff's concerns appeared in testimony filed as part of the PSC's look at Progress' request to raise its base electricity rate.

Although the staff testimony did not express an opinion about whether Progress' rate hike should be approved, the concerns raised could ultimately affect what course of action the staff recommends to the commission.

In the report, the PSC staff reviewed data from 1999 to 2004 to analyze the effectiveness of Progress' tree-trimming, lightning-protection and pole-inspection programs. The staff found that Progress had recorded a decline in lightning-related power outages and observed that the company needs more frequent and better-managed inspections of utility poles. And it noted an improvement in its tree-trimming program for transmission lines, the high-voltage power lines that carry electricity from power plants to substations.

But the report also pointed to worrying trends regarding the company's tree trimming around distribution lines. Although Progress registered a decline in the number of vegetation-related power outages from 8,141 in 2003 to 6,793 in 2004, last year's figures were still 42 percent higher than 1999's total of 4,776 and 15 percent higher than the 5,926 outages recorded in 2000.

Overall, Progress has experienced a decline in power outages. In 2000, the company's customers experienced an average of 100.6 outage minutes. That figure declined to 77 minutes in 2004, excluding outages caused by last year's hurricanes.

Still, the PSC staff report said tree trimming of distribution lines remained a special concern.

"As much as 20 percent of the company's (outage minutes) annually were attributed to vegetation-related outages, and vegetation was the leading cause of outages for the company in 2000 through 2004," the report said.

Progress spokesman Aaron Perlut acknowledged that the company is trimming fewer miles of distribution lines than before. But he said that because the company's tree-trimming contractors are cutting vegetation more extensively within each mile, it has reduced the needed frequency of trimming.

"In other words, we're getting more bang for the buck," he said.

--Louis Hau can be reached at 813 226-3404 or hau@sptimes.com

[Last modified August 2, 2005, 02:45:17]