By Richard L. Gaw
Staff Writer

Over its last few editions, the Chester County Press has focused on the frequent power outages in southern Chester County that have raised concern and drawn the anger of thousands of PECO customers. We recently addressed those concerns in an interview with Jennifer Hanna, PECO’s Vice President of Electric Operations, who oversees the daily operation of the energy company’s electric distribution system, including management of its distribution system operations and construction and maintenance organization.

Let’s begin by asking a simple question: Why do PECO customers in Chester County continue to endure an inordinate amount of power outages? 

Hanna: Let’s start with the fact that 73 percent of the outages that Chester County is seeing are due to vegetation. You couple it with the fact that we’re seeing abnormal storm activity, and unfortunately, our customers are seeing the impact of that. In addition, we are doing a lot of reliability work, so in order to upgrade our infrastructure – replace wires and poles – we are doing planned outages, so some of the outages customers are seeing are also intentional so we can safely do this upgrade work. However, the storms that are coming through and the vegetation issues are what our customers are seeing the most.

What do you tell the family of an elderly member who needs access to power in order to have his or her life saving machines working during a power outage?

Our infrastructure improvement work aims to prevent outages, but if an outage does occur we are focused on safely restoring power as quickly as possible. In the event that there is an unfortunate circumstance where someone is encountering the situation you described, know that we are working quickly and as safely as possible to restore power. In the event that they need support outside of power, they need to rely on 9-1-1 services for support or have a back-up plan.

In a story that appeared in the July 23 edition of the Chester County Press, several PECO customers quoted in the report said they have had difficulty reaching a live person during the power outages, and that the text reports display inaccurate information about when power will be restored. What measures is PECO taking to improve its customer communications, particularly during power outages?

We staff up for storms, in the field, in the back office and in our customer care center and add customer representatives so that we are able to answer phones during a storm. To answer it from a technical perspective, think of a power outage and estimated restoration times like the trunk of a tree and its branches. An outage will come in at the trunk of the tree and some of the branches may have outages associated with this. We call them “nested outages,” so we make the repairs at

the trunk of the tree, but there could be outages left on the branches, but you can’t get to those outages until you repair the main trunk.

At that point, the estimated time of restoration could change for those customers who are affected by nested outages. So, we can see multiple times for restoration if you have a nested outage, which is what our customers are seeing in some of those circumstances.

Recently, PECO told Pennsylvania State Sen. John Kane that it has six ongoing projects in Chester County that are “targeting vegetated areas with tree trimming/removals, and approximately two miles of covered primary conductors as well as more than five miles of reframing, reconductoring, and/or converting areas.” Give me a status report on those projects and when customers can expect to see positive outcomes – in other words, few power outages.

Reframing is upgrading the voltage of the power lines. We’re rebuilding our infrastructure to support higher voltage to meet evolving customer needs. We’re also reconductoring our tree resistant wires so we will replace aging wire with more modern tree wire. If a tree limb comes down on a tree resistant wire it typically will not cause an outage. We tend to use them in heavily vegetated areas.

There have been a couple of projects that have been in the works since the end of 2024. We began with vegetation removal – making some clearances so that we can then do construction. Some of those projects are scheduled to be completed by the end of August, so customers will begin to feel the impact of that. In addition, we have shortened our vegetation trimming cycles from five years to four years –by 20 percent – and customers will see the impact of that in this year. For context, a trimming cycle means that all circuits will be analyzed, and vegetation will be trimmed on a four-year basis.

We also have eight projects scheduled for 2026 – to continue to look at the reliability in the area, what we can do to improve it and taking feedback from our customers. Our goal is to make sure that we have safe and reliable power for our customers, and that they are not seeing outages.

State Rep. Mandy Steele (D-Allegheny) recently introduced H.R. 254, a resolution to get the Commonwealth to look into how the state can better protect its utility infrastructure against future and frequent weather events. What is PECO’s stance on underground wiring, and specifically, what do you feel are the pros and cons of such a major infrastructure overhaul in Pennsylvania?

There are pros and cons. One, it’s underground and therefore not susceptible to tree outages. That said, the life span of underground cable is less than aerial cable; the life span of underground cable is 40 years, and the life span of aerial cable is 60 years. The other impact of underground cable is that you can’t see it, so when there is an issue, it takes longer to troubleshoot and get power restored. Underground cable is also seven to ten times the cost of aerial cable, so there would be an impact on our customers, cost-wise.

Although underground cable has its benefits, there are some downsides to it, as well.

The PECO 2025 Summer Readiness Report filed with the PUC states that “PECO has several reliability enhancement programs that significantly contribute to the company’s success performance.” What does “success” mean to you and your colleagues at PECO?

First and foremost, it’s the safety of our employees and our customers. From a reliability perspective, we never want to see our customers without power. The enhancements that we are

putting into our infrastructure – whether it’s the upgraded equipment or using new technology – are supporting the reliability of our service to our customers.

Success to me is seeing the benefits of those investments in our infrastructure. In 2023, we had one of our best reliability performance years as a company, when 86 percent of our customers did not see an outage – or had one outage and when power was interrupted, we were able to get customers back on within 90 minutes on average. To me, that’s success.

In his address to his constituency on July 2, Kennett Township Supervisor Geoffrey Gamble recommended that a PECO representative serve as a liaison between the company and the township, who will be asked to appear regularly at township meetings and provide updates. That’s a large task, but an important one. Would this be feasible for PECO to do, and not just for one municipality but several?

We have external affairs representatives that are assigned to each county, which provides a direct line for municipalities to reach us with their comments and their concerns. That has, and continues to be a great mechanism for receiving feedback. We are aware of Supervisor Gamble’s comments and we have our reliability team looking at some of the issues he raised and will schedule some time to sit down and talk with him.

The modernization of our households and our work environments have changed dramatically over the last decade, as has our reliance on various forms of energy such as internet access. Let’s take a long view. Strictly in terms of technological advancement – decisions made in the science of delivering energy - how is PECO preparing itself to meet the changing face of technology in the home and in the workplace?

To combat the effects of a changing climate and more frequent and severe storms, PECO has invested millions of dollars on storm hardening, which involves physical changes to make equipment less susceptible to the impact of extreme weather conditions. For example, during the last several years we have invested $120 million in advanced devices known as reclosers, which will minimize the number of customers impacted during an outage. It will see an outage, isolate the damage, and restore power to the unaffected customers, so they will not experience an extended outage. Crews will then be able to make repairs on the section that is actually impacted. Those types of investments minimize impact on our customers. From 2018-2024, these reclosers have avoided approximately 6.89 million power interruptions for customers.  

We’re also investing in our new meters, which can automatically detect a power outage and help us determine who has power and who does not have power so we can efficiently dispatch crews during a storm. We’re also investing in other types of technology, such as drones to assess damage in storms, that will help our crews to make the repairs they need to make in a more efficient manner.

To contact Staff Writer Richard L. Gaw, email [email protected].