In 2023, the average percentage of time any Polk County RPPD household had lower was 99.99%. When your power goes out, it may seem like hours before it comes back on, but 99.99% availability amounts to approximately 52 minutes a year without power. But still, during an outage you may wonder what is taking so long?!
Whether you report an outage by text, phoning the office, or using our SmartHub app, our crew is ready to leap into action to get your power restored as quickly as possible. 24x7x365 we have linemen on-call to respond to your plea for power.
First things first, if after hours, the two on-call linemen must drive back to the office to pick up their service truck and equipment and begin the trek to the outage area. If numerous calls come in, our Outage Management System helps to pinpoint the issue by predicting the system protective device that may have tripped.
The linemen will then patrol the line to find what caused the protective device to trip. It may be a blown lightning arrestor, a broken pole, or a less than fortunate squirrel. Patrolling the line takes time, especially in the dark in the middle of a storm. But patrolling the line is crucial to ensure the safety of the linemen and the system before resetting the protective device.
Once the problem is found, the linemen plan their repairs which may involve de-energizing additional line so repairs can be made safely. Sometimes the on-call crew may need to call for additional help or materials if the repairs are extensive.
Each situation is unique with varying factors affecting outage restoration time. But rest assured, the linemen are working as quickly as safely possible to get your power back on. If you are interested in learning more or have questions, please give us a call.
PCRPPD Historical Reliability
