Keeping the Lights On | Palatka Daily News, Palatka, Florida

FPL to sweep county in infrastructure check

Florida Power & Light employees work on poles on South 15th Street in Palatka on Tuesday afternoon. The company will be checking poles throughout the county as part of its eight-year service cycle.

Florida Power & Light plans to inspect every power pole in Putnam County, clear hazards to its grid and harden its infrastructure in its eight-year service cycle.

Crews have been all over the city replacing poles and setting up underground lines.

The utility is strengthening two main power lines for residents to recover faster after major storms. FPL is also inspecting and clearing tree branches and vegetation from 15 miles of power lines. The utility has 20,470 Putnam County customers.

It’s smart grid technology, FPL spokeswoman Marie Bertot said, that could reduce an hourlong outage to a flicker. FPL installed 637 automated switches, which help detect issues and re-establish service quicker when outages occur on main and neighborhood power lines.

“We’re making the grid stronger and more storm resistant,” Bertot said. “You don’t have to get up and go to the breaker. The breaker resets itself.”

Since several hurricanes struck Florida in 2004 and 2005, she said FPL has strengthened five main power lines in Palatka, reviewed 1,104 miles of power lines and cleared an average of 74 miles of tree branches and vegetation each year. FPL also inspects 6,191 power poles every eight years in the county.

The utility estimates between 300 and 500 neighborhood power lines will be placed underground statewide by 2022.

Eric Silagy, president and CEO of FPL, said replacing overhead power lines with underground lines will reduce outages caused by animals and tree limbs.

Since 2006, the company has invested more than $5 billion into infrastructure and increased service reliability by 40% in the past decade, according to an agency press release.

“FPL has been improving the energy grid, making it stronger, smarter and more storm-resilient to keep the lights on for customers in good weather and bad,” Silagy said.

Hurricane season, which lasts June 1 to Nov. 30, is looming. The National Hurricane Center declared it would begin issuing daily reports May 15, which is two weeks earlier than previous years. There were two named storms last May.

“Last year, there was a historic level of tropical activity with 30 named storms, and as a result of our ongoing investments in smart grid technology, we were able to speed restoration during these storms and avoid more than 150,000 outages.”