Butler County electric utilities manage maintenance, storm repairs
No matter the season, storms, high winds, heavy precipitation and fallen trees bring with them outages and electrical problems for homes across Butler County.
As winter transitions into spring and snowstorms turn into rain, electric utilities continue to examine the weak points of the grid in Butler County, strategize to deal with downed trees and other problems, and work to communicate with the public.
The Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission analyzes reliability of electrical service across the state every year, said Nils Hagen-Frederiksen, of the PUC. The report is published in mid-summer.
The most recent report, evaluating utilities’ performance over 2020, noted that Butler County utility West Penn Power had nine reportable outages in 2020, with its largest outage on Nov. 15, 2020, affecting 60,268 customers. Penn Power had only two outages in 2020, on June 10 and Nov. 15, affecting just over 10,000 customers in both cases.
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