When the power goes out during a storm, it's often because of trees falling outside of Kentucky Power’s rights of way (ROW) onto power equipment. With severe weather occurring more frequently, tree trimming and removal near overhead lines is imperative to help fortify the electric system, especially in the heavily forested terrain of eastern Kentucky.
Providing reliable service is a constant goal for crews charged with keeping the lights on for Kentucky Power customers. That’s why the vegetation management program is the centerpiece of the company’s reliability plan.
“With nearly one out of every two outage minutes caused by trees falling into our rights of way, it’s easy to understand why this program is so important,” said Everett Phillips, vice president of distribution. It is a utility standard to measure outages in minutes.
Kentucky Power’s comprehensive, data-driven vegetation management program started in 2010 as an effective way to measurably improve electric service reliability for customers. The program includes an ongoing commitment to complete a clearance cycle once every five years. In 2018, the company began its targeted ROW widening program. Already this year, the program has completed its tree removal goal by removing more than 18,000 trees outside of the company’s ROW.
“Since our vegetation management programs began, the actual minutes customers are affected by ROW outages has decreased by as much as 83%. In a service area where 75% of distribution lines are exposed to vegetative risk and threat, this is a significant accomplishment for reliability improvement efforts,” Phillips reported.
One tool all electric utilities use to measure reliability data is SAIDI, or the System Average Interruption Duration Index. According to Phillips, the company’s targeted ROW widening program has successfully reduced its average interruption of service to customers by as much as 15 percent.
“Vegetation management is one of the most cost-effective solutions to improving electric reliability,” Phillips said. “We're constantly working to improve day-to-day service for our customers, and we continue to see fewer power outages where this work has been completed."