Cooperative Continuity Management

Bill WillinghamFlorida Electric Cooperatives Association, Inc.Tallahassee, FL

Mitigation/Hardening

• There are several things that co-ops can do to “harden” the system, but they are not cheap or without complications• Research projects• Preventative Maintenance• Standards and materials

Mitigation/Hardening (cont.)

• Research projects• PURC• RUS• CRN

Overhead

• Pole Inspections • Our members meet the RUS standard• New pole attachment agreements

• Construction Standards and Materials• Using stronger poles and modified

standards on new construction and rebuilds

• Vegetation Management • Best bang for the $$ for most co-ops

Vegetation Management

Coops Heavily

Damaged

Percent of

Customers

Longest Outage

Frances 6 50 12 days Jeanne 9 73 8 days Ivan 3 54 15 days Dennis 2 64 5 days

Design/Construction Standards

• Overhead facilities can be built to withstand higher winds if money is not an issue, but even the strongest designs cannot withstand all of the trees, debris, tornados, or microbursts

Underground

•Problems–flexibility in rural areas–cost–longer non-disaster outages–coastal areas–flood prone areas–trees

Restoration

• Each co-op has its own restoration plan, and these plans continue to evolve as we learn from our own experiences and from helping others.

• FECA has a comprehensive plan for coordinating mutual aid and otherwise assisting its members

Approximately 900 coops and 2,000 municipally-owned electric utilities

Restoration (cont.)

• The utilities and the EOC have worked very well together.