Report outlines how PowerStream handled 2013 ice storm

YorkRegion.com
Aug. 13, 2014
By Sean Pearce

PowerStream has released results of an internal review of its response to the 2013 ice storm that highlights what worked well and where there is room for improvement in its policies and procedures.

The 27-page document, which was assessed by Navigant Consulting Ltd., outlines a series of actions to be completed by the end of March 2015.

Many of the report’s recommendations are either completed or underway, PowerStream spokesperson Eric Fagen said, adding the ice storm, which hit York Region Dec. 21 and 22, brought some valuable lessons along with its multitude of challenges.

“As bad as the ice storm was, and we don’t want to experience something like it again, the silver lining is we now know some things that will help us going forward,” he said. “There were several learning opportunities.”

According to the review, the utility hasn’t been idle since the ice storm and has already taken several steps, including increasing the capacities of its website and online outage map, implementing a process to determine and communicate estimated times of restoration during outages and hiring an emergency preparedness manager to provide refresher training for staff. By year end, the utility aims to move to a “one number” approach, combining its corporate and outage phone systems, making enhancements to the interactive voice recognition (IVR) system, developing an electronic tool for its electrical emergency preparedness plan to better define the roles and responsibilities of all departments during outages, among a number of other measures.

By the end of next March, PowerStream also plans to have investigated an external call centre that could be activated to increase the number of live agents during future large-scale power outages. The report says the utility is already speaking with a third-party provider to determine costs and options.

The utility has contended with major outages in the past, Fagen said, noting that in 2012, superstorm Sandy impacted about 43,000 PowerStream customers, with outages lasting up to two days, while the rain storms and subsequent flooding experienced in July 2013 knocked out power to some 38,000 customers for up to eight hours, but both of those events paled in comparison to the ice storm. At the storm’s peak, it left more than 92,000 customers in the dark, he said, with most of those affected residing in Aurora, Markham, Richmond Hill and Vaughan.

In total, 500,000 electricity users across Ontario lost power.

“This was the first time PowerStream suffered an outage of this magnitude,” Fagen said. “The ice storm brought a new face to extreme weather.”

Even so, the majority of PowerStream’s customers had power back on within 24 hours and 85 per cent were restored within 48 hours. Most of the customers waiting past those times for service restoration were those with service lines located in back yard, Fagen explained, which presents difficulties when it comes to repairs as crews can’t get behind the homes with their bucket trucks and other equipment.

“It takes quite a while no matter how good we are,” he said, adding many of the homes in question are in older areas of Thornhill. “In some cases, it would take six hours to restore one house.”

Full restoration of PowerStream’s service territory was achieved Dec. 30.

Some have said a simple solution to prevent future outages would be to bury the lines, but that would cost billions of dollars and have a significant impact on rates, according to Fagen. In any event, PowerStream does plan to do what it can to make its distribution grid “more resilient” to future events, while remaining mindful of the associated price tag, he said.

During the storm, many customers kept track of updates through social media, Fagen said, and PowerStream intends to do more of that and also add options for users to receive information via email and eventually text messages. In situations where communications infrastructure is also down, the utility even has contingencies in place that would see it communicate with customers via road signs, loud speakers and even flyer handouts.

Extreme weather phenomena are becoming increasingly commonplace, PowerStream board chairperson and Vaughan Mayor Maurizio Bevilacqua said in a statement, adding it’s important to be ready for when they strike.

“The effects of climate change are becoming more evident with the number of extreme weather events,” he said. "A review of our response to the 2013 ice storm was undertaken to gather all of the information learned from this experience and to better prepare the utility to serve and restore power to customers when widespread outages or similar events occur.”