Board of Public Utilities orders 103 changes before June. It cites repeated complaints about electricity providers following major storms.
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New Jersey's electricity providers are being told to make more than 100 changes in how they respond to widespread outages.
Accused three months ago of being too slow following Superstorm Sandy, New Jersey’s electricity providers are being told in short order to make more than 100 changes in how they respond to widespread outages.
The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities wants the utilities to complete most of the 103 changes before June, the start of hurricane season.
Many changes should take little time and money, such as utilities providing a phone call a day to municipal officials when there are widespread outages. Others seem to beg for more time, such as creating an individual website to report on outages in each individual municipality.
That is asking the utilities to make 565 new websites across New Jersey’s 21 counties -- just over three websites a day for six months.
A statement from the BPU acknowledged "hard deadlines." While the utilities' performance after Sandy remains under review, it says, "concerns raised about the (utilities') performance during Hurricane Irene and the October snowstorm were heard again during Hurricane Sandy and the Board will address them without delay."
Ron Morano, a spokesman for JCP&L, didn’t answer questions about the tight deadline or how much the changes might cost. But he said the utility is working with the BPU and has already introduced new practices to provide more information during significant storms.
JCP&L provides electricity to all of Warren and Hunterdon counties. After Superstorm Sandy in October, it had 1.3 million customers without power, including 92 percent of its 50,598 Warren customers and 88 percent of its 60,967 Hunterdon customers.
Among changes ordered by the BPU include telling customers within 24 hours of an outage when they’ll get power back and having providers plan what to do when three-quarters of customers or more lose power.Other changes are to improve call centers, arrange for more people and resources in outages, compile “lessons learned” after major outages and better handle downed trees.
In all, the changes are supposed to improve preparation, communication, response times, follow up and infrastructure.
Sandy and three 2011 storms — an October snowstorm and two tropical storms — each left millions of customers without power for as long as two weeks. The utilities were panned for responses that customers, elected officials and Gov. Chris Christie deemed too slow.
Utilities said their responses suffered because the storms were
unprecedented in the amount of damage they caused in the Northeast.