New Jersey regulators on Wednesday criticized the state’s utilities’ response to Tropical Storm Isaias, saying they have failed to correct longstanding problems with vegetation management. They also singled out Rockland Electric Co. (RECO) for slow restoration of its customers and Jersey Central Power & Light (JCP&L) for poor communication with customers and public officials.

The Aug. 4 storm disrupted service to 1.3 million customers at its peak and affected 1.6 million customers overall, making it “the most destructive weather event” in the state since Superstorm Sandy in 2012, said Jim Giuliano, director of the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities’ Division of Reliability and Security.

Wind gusts exceeding 60 mph and heavy rain caused “thousands of tree impacts” and outages in all 21 counties, Giuliano said in describing BPU staff’s report on the event. RECO, JCP&L, Public Service Electric and Gas, and Atlantic City Electric deployed 130,000 utility workers and support personnel, restoring service to more than 70% of customers within 72 hours, Giuliano said. Full restoration to all customers was “virtually completed on the evening of Aug. 11,” he added.

“For a damaging weather event which caused well over 1 million customers [to lose power] in a COVID pandemic environment, the overall pace and length of restoration appeared reasonable in staff’s view,” he said. “RECO, however, was an outlier, with only 72% of its 52,000 customers [restored] in 72 hours, a slow pace that continued through the event.” More than 70% of the company’s customers lost service, and it took nine days to restore all of them.

Communication

Giuliano also said, “Certain areas of utility performance during these events clearly warrant improvement,” citing “an emphatic message” from ratepayers and elected officials for more effective communication.

The BPU said the electric distribution companies (EDCs) had difficulties with call center call volumes and multiple inaccurate automated estimated time of restoration (ETR) updates. “Although calls with officials were conducted daily, some elected officials were concerned about not getting updated and timely information concerning repair activities in their communities. Elected officials objected to being put in a position of acting as an intermediary between customers and the utility, especially without having sufficient information and awareness about outages and the restoration process,” BPU said.

“When a lifeline service is disrupted for an extended period, residents must have the best information available as soon as it is available to make the right choices for their families, businesses and communities,” Giuliano said. “This was an area of concern during the storm event, especially with JCP&L.”

Regulators also hit JCP&L for not offering free water and ice to customers during outages, unlike the other three EDCs. JCP&L instead offered vouchers that could be used at local stores. “While this theoretically should have increased availability of outlets, complaints were heard that the stores were out of water and/or ice, ergo the vouchers were of no value,” BPU said.

On the bright side, the utilities’ storm-hardening investments since Sandy appeared to have helped, the BPU said. “It appears the post-Sandy completed projects experienced less damage than the older, more vulnerable overhead infrastructure.”

“We have come a long way as far as the infrastructure is concerned,” BPU President Joseph Fiordaliso said. “I was talking to some people who know a heck of a lot more than I do who said if this storm had occurred 10 years ago … people could have been out for two weeks. So, the infrastructure investments that we’ve been making over the years, particularly since Sandy, I think are paying off.”

Vegetation Management

But Fiordaliso said he was disappointed that trees continue to be the primary cause of outages.

“We’re hearing the same things after each storm, unfortunately. I spoke with the presidents of all of the electric utilities after the storm and told them that vegetation management is a top priority. I’ve been on the board [nearly] 16 years, [and] vegetation management has been a … constant problem.”

BPU staff highlighted the impact of outages caused by trees outside utilities’ rights of way (ROW). “Many of these trees were otherwise healthy trees outside of the ROW but large enough to make contact with utility infrastructure, whether it was the EDC’s, telecommunications or cable infrastructure,” BPU said. “While the EDCs do make some efforts to address ‘hazard trees’ (trees outside the ROW that are dead, dying or in some way compromised and likely to fail that can contact electric utility infrastructure), this is not uniform across all of the EDC’s vegetation management plans. In addition, ‘danger trees’ (otherwise healthy trees outside the ROW that could contact electric utility infrastructure) are not regularly addressed by the EDCs.”

Fiordaliso said he told the utilities: “Bring us suggestions, because it is … the biggest problem that we have.”

He said the BPU hears complaints about utility communications from JCP&L customers more than anyone else and said he hoped an upcoming audit “may discover some things that can help us help them.”

“It’s something that is a constant problem: the outreach to individual customers; the outreach to public officials.”

Fiordaliso also expressed disappointment with Consolidated Edison’s RECO, saying restoration was much quicker in Con Ed’s Orange & Rockland Utilities (ORU) across the border in New York. BPU staff said information provided in the company’s major event report was mostly aggregated for ORU and RECO, making it difficult for staff to evaluate RECO’s response.

“When it takes seven days to restore 50,000 customers, and a neighboring utility is restoring 700,000 in the same period of time, that’s a resource issue to me,” Giuliano said. “Obviously, they need to provide more resources.”

“If anyone from Rockland is listening, we’re going to be looking very closely,” Fiordaliso responded. “That [performance] is unacceptable.”

Commissioner Bob Gordon said he shared Fiordaliso’s anger over “what I would call the lackadaisical response” by the utility, saying the state should consider increasing penalties for poor performance.

“My friends and former colleagues in the legislature have introduced legislation that would impose higher fines on utilities that have extended outages. I believe New York is exploring similar policies,” he said. “I think that’s one of things we should explore.”

Commissioner Mary-Anna Holden suggested, “Perhaps there was political pressure — because there were so many outages in New York — to take resources away [from New Jersey]. I’m just speculating. I don’t know that for sure.”

Fiordaliso said he wanted to end the discussion on a positive note. “I am very pleased that, since those March nor’easters a few years ago [when] I had very frank discussions with some of our utilities, the intrastate cooperation has improved tenfold. I want to thank each and every one of those electric utilities for their cooperation.”

Recommendations

The BPU’s order approved a series of staff recommendations. Some highlights:

• The EDCs shall improve ETR messaging automatically generated by their outage management system (OMS) and test the OMS under stressed conditions; provide a plan to improve call center peak volume during a major outage event; and develop a plan that proactively educates customers and elected officials on the restoration process.
• The board shall, in its review of the recently filed advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) plans, continue to consider AMI’s potential in reducing the length of prolonged customer outages following a major weather event.
• The board shall continue its stakeholder process to update the 2015 vegetation management rules to include reporting of indices specific to tree-related outages and major events, with a focus on circuits heavily damaged by trees. Circuits with disproportionately high indices of tree-related damage and outages should be targeted for enhanced vegetation management to address off-ROW hazard and danger trees.
• The board shall evaluate potential legislative solutions to address the EDCs’ rights to perform trimming or removal of off-ROW “hazard trees” where they threaten overhead facilities.
• The EDCs shall evaluate their five worst performing circuits or other metric to determine whether portions of the circuits would be candidates for undergrounding and submit a cost/benefit analysis to the BPU within 90 days.
• For any “major event” that affects RECO’s and ORU’s service territories, RECO shall have an average daily restoration rate in New Jersey that is approximately equal to the average daily restoration rate for ORU. Additionally, RECO shall report the average daily restoration rate of in both New Jersey and New York in its major event report.