While the summer heat held tight to the Philadelphia region through September, cooler autumn temperatures are now here. PECO is using this time to take inventory of the company’s summer performance in terms of preventing power outages and restoring service when outages did occur.

With that, PECO’s summer 2023 reliability performance was better than the three-year summer average due to the diligence of employees to help ensure critical electric infrastructure was prepared to handle increased demand and summer storms.  

This summer, the region experienced 17 days of temperatures above 90 degrees and several storms. This includes severe weather that passed through the Philadelphia region from Aug. 7-10 and resulted in more than 139,000 customer outages. PECO crews and mutual assistance personnel worked around the clock to repair infrastructure, restoring more than 100,000 customers in just 24 hours, and all customers having service restored in less than four days. Using smart meters, PECO was able to quickly detect outages and dispatch crews to restore power. Throughout the entire storm response, these smart meters helped the company confirm whether customers were restored or not, saving a crew from being dispatched unnecessarily 2,081 times, and in turn bringing all customers back online more quickly and efficiently.

Even with these extreme storms and hot days, PECO customers experienced enhanced reliability this summer. This comes from investments in infrastructure, including the installation of 23 additional reclosers, which aid in storm restoration. This has enabled customers to experience less frequent and shorter outages over the last four years. 

“Delivering consistent and reliable service for our customers is our mission and we are invested in strengthening our infrastructure to reduce outages, especially during extreme heat and severe weather,” said Nicole LeVine, PECO senior vice president and COO. “By strategically preparing for weather events, our dedicated field employees are helping us meet the needs of hundreds of thousands of residential and business customers across southeastern Pennsylvania.”

Continuing to invest in infrastructure is imperative to reliability and storm restoration. Throughout the next five years, PECO is investing approximately $7.8 billion across its electric and natural gas systems to inspect equipment, complete targeted infrastructure enhancements and corrective maintenance, invest in new equipment, and perform vegetation management work. This investment includes PECO’s Reliability & Resiliency Plan, which outlines the investment of $1.36 billion on targeted reliability-focused electric system infrastructure investments through 2025. 

Vegetation management is a critical component of the company’s ability to quickly restore power. When the severe weather hit in August, employees worked extensively to help remove trees and other debris following the storm. From Aug. 7-11, a PECO team of nearly 150 employees responded to 316 priority calls during the storm.

As temperatures continue to dip and the Philadelphia region moves into the colder months, PECO will continue to work to ensure the company’s natural gas and electric systems are ready to meet the energy needs of customers all winter long.

Learn more about how PECO is dedicated to the safe and reliable delivery of electricity and natural gas, as well as enhanced energy management conservation, environmental stewardship, and community assistance.