Duarte Puts Edison on Written Notice to
Address Ongoing Power Outages
DUARTE, CA, July 21, 2011 –Frustrated over years of frequent scheduled and unscheduled Southern California Edison power outages which continually disrupt service to Duarte residents and businesses, the City has sent a letter to Edison demanding the utility address plans for correcting the ongoing equipment failures.
For the last four years, Duarte residents and businesses have been plagued with dozens of power outages, most due to breakdowns of antiquated Edison underground equipment. More than half of a list of 42 outages, cited in a letter from City Manager Darrell George to Les Starck, vice president of local public affairs for Edison, shut down power to parts of the City for as many as 5 to 12 hours. There have been 18 power outages in Duarte between January and July of 2011. In the most recent, on July 12, residents were adversely affected by both a planned outage which shut down electrical power to 56 structures for 7 hours, and an unplanned outage initially affecting more than 2,100 homes, with 300 homes left without power for more than 12 hours.
George noted that despite a $4 million upgrade to Edison’s Ambrus circuit completed and launched last fall, the upgrade “has neither resolved nor slowed down the problem of frequent outages in Duarte. Equipment on the Ambrus Circuit has failed twice in the past several months, knocking out power to 2,200 residents and businesses for 12 hours each time on May 27-28 and on June 27. Many outages also continue to occur on antiquated underground equipment on Edison’s Honeywell circuit. “Experience suggests heat combined with the recently identified unstable underground equipment on the Honeywell Circuit will result in monthly or more frequent outages with hours of interruption to residents and businesses in the area,” George wrote.
He said City staff has been inundated with calls over the years from residents tired and angry about the power outages as well as the massive towers that Edison has constructed in Duarte neighborhoods as part of its Tehachapi Renewable Transmission Tower Project, and “are out of valid reasons to give the public as to why the outages keep occurring.”
The City has given Edison a deadline of July 26, 2011 to state its plan to resolve the lengthy and repetitive outages related to underground equipment failure. Duarte also wants Edison’s agreement to conduct a peer review, at its expense to objectively analyze the service reliability and adequacy in Duarte with technical recommendations for system improvements, “so that we can thoughtfully determine a path forward to gain the consistent electrical service our residents deserve, but have had to live without,” said George.
In addition, Duarte has asked Edison to provide:
- A complete listing of all outages affecting the City of Duarte since January 2007.
- A complete listing of all outages affecting customers in what have been the areas of the City hardest hit by the outages, within the boundaries of Royal Oaks Dr. to the north; Huntington Dr. on the south; Encanto Parkway on the east; and Swiss Trails Road on the west.
- A complete listing of all outage complaints received by the Customer Service Center since January 2007 within the same boundaries.
- The utility’s thoughts and possible support on whether the second phase of Edison’s current General Rate Case is a proper venue to explore rate designs that would set baselines for reliability with adjustments based on tiers of unreliability and repeated service interruptions to residents and businesses.
Duarte residents and businesses are encouraged to lodge their questions and complaints about power outages and other issues relating to Edison service to Edison Customer Service Center at (800) 611-1911. Customers can also contact the California Public Utilities Commission in writing at 505 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco, CA 94102, or by telephone at 1-800-649-7570.
