AEP Ohio seeks regulator approval to upgrade outage prevention technology

AEP Ohio, an American Electric Power company, seeks approval from the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) for its newest plan to improve power grid reliability and resiliency.

“We have asked the PUCO to let us continue building on our successes with grid automation technology that can route power around problems to keep power flowing to as many customers as possible,” said Marc Reitter, AEP Ohio president and chief operating officer.

Specifically, the six-year plan includes installing or upgrading distribution automation circuit reconfiguration (DACR) technologies on up to 412 circuits throughout the utility’s service territory.

DACR technologies detect a power outage and automatically reroute the power, minimizing the number of people impacted. They also allow crews to pinpoint what needs to be repaired to restore power.

“This proposal would more than double the number of DACR installations on our system,” Reitter said, noting that AEP Ohio has previously installed DACR technology responsible for preventing 41 million minutes of customer interruptions.

AEP Ohio plans to invest approximately $350 million over the six years of this plan, it said. If approved as filed, the proposal is estimated to cost a residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt-hours per month an extra 22 cents.

“AEP Ohio is continually focused on improving reliability throughout our service territory for each and every customer,” he added. “Our efforts include traditional solutions like trimming trees to utilizing advanced technology to automate the power grid.”

AEP Ohio’s latest proposal is part of its gridSMART program. This newest phase would be focused on specifically installing DACR technologies on 333 circuits without any previously installed DACR equipment and additional DACR technologies on 79 circuits that are already equipped with some level of DACR technology, the company said.

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