Reliability Initiative

In 2005, Great Lakes Energy launched a reliability initiative as part of a long-range plan to upgrade our entire distribution system over time. Approximately 60 percent of Great Lakes Energy’s power line distribution system is at least 40 years old.

Key projects in progress to help us reach our reliability goals in order to provide better electric service to our members include:

• More miles of power line rights-of-way will be cleared of trees and brush, the major cause of outages and blinks. In 2007 alone, an estimated $2.8 million was invested in re-clearing more than 1,300 miles of power lines in 16 counties and 64 townships.
  
  In 2008 private contracted crews will get an early start on the plan to re-clear approximately 1,400 miles of line. They will begin work in Allegan County’s Salem and Dorr Townships, Lake County’s Chase Township, Mecosta County’s Green and Grant Townships, Newaygo County’s Barton, Home, Lilley and Monroe Townships, and Osceola County’s Richmond and Hersey Townships.

Trees and branches touching power lines are the biggest cause of outages and blinking lights. Tree and brush management along power line rights-of-way is essential to providing safe and reliable electric service.

• Large power line circuits that experience above-average occurrences of outages and blinks will continue to be identified and upgraded. We will upgrade nine of these circuits in the Kalkaska area, five in the Reed City area, three in the Wayland area and two in the Hart area during 2008.

We replace old equipment, such as transformers, lighting arrestors, insulators and connections. We also look for bad spots in the lines, broken or split cross-arms and bad poles. The circuits slated for upgrade represent 1,145 miles of power line serving 16,528 GLE members. We continue to hear praise from members on the shorter outage restoration time they now experience.

• Sectionalizing circuits helps minimize the number of members affected by outages. When something interrupts the flow of electricity through the lines, often large sections of the line need to be de-energized so that employees can repair the problem. Depending on the type of circuit configuration, we install different pieces of equipment in order to isolate the smallest clusters of members as we can when a fault occurs.

The circuits targeted for sectionalizing improvements in 2008 are in the following service areas:

• Boyne City: Elmira, East Jordan, Barnard, Central Lake
• Hart: Colfax, Rogers and Shelby
• Kalkaska: Kalkaska, Westwood, South Boardman, Mancelona
• Newaygo: Newaygo, Baldwin, Brohman, Brooks, Cedar Springs, Morley, Pierson, White Cloud
• Petoskey: West Traverse, Cross Village, Resort
• Reed City: Baldwin, Hartwick, Lincoln
• Scottville: Riverton, Star Lake
• Waters: Gaylord, Johannesburg, Bagley
• Wayland: Wayland, Burnips, Drenth, Wayne, Goodwin