Last summer, many Ivins residents experienced a frustrating number of power outages. After hearing concerns from residents, I contacted the Utah Public Service Commission and requested more detailed information from Rocky Mountain Power (RMP) about what was causing the outages and what could be done to improve reliability.
The Public Service Commission took the request seriously, and shortly afterward Rocky Mountain Power’s president and several members of their senior leadership team met with us at City Hall. They reviewed outage data with us, explained the causes, and discussed steps they would take to improve service reliability. (For a summary of that meeting, see the article from last August, “Power Reliability Meeting with Rocky Mountain Power.”)
At that meeting, Rocky Mountain Power explained that most of the outages we experienced were related to Enhanced Safety Settings (ESS), a wildfire-prevention system that automatically shuts off power when it detects conditions that could create fire risk. The concept makes sense, but the settings being used at the time were proving too sensitive and were causing unnecessary outages.
As a result of those discussions, Rocky Mountain Power adjusted the settings last August and made some other changes to make our system more robust.
Last month I asked them for an update on what residents should expect this summer. Their response was encouraging:
- They do not expect the ESS settings that caused problems last year to trigger outages on the Ivins circuits this summer.
- They have improved their ability to forecast and communicate Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) events.
- Aside from storms, accidents, and normal day-to-day equipment issues, they do not anticipate anything resembling last year’s outage pattern.
Of course, no utility can promise or provide perfect reliability. Equipment fails, storms happen, and accidents occur. But Rocky Mountain Power’s outlook for this summer is much more positive than it was a year ago.
A Recent Example of Responsiveness
Just this week, a resident contacted me regarding an outage that occurred in the Kayenta area. The outage itself wasn’t the problem. The issue was that she never received the notifications Rocky Mountain Power believed had been sent.
As a result, she wasn’t able to prepare for the outage by moving her car out of the garage, making arrangements for refrigerated food, and taking other simple precautions.
I contacted Rocky Mountain Power about this incident at 8:24am yesterday. To their credit, they replied to me at 3:04pm yesterday saying they investigated the issue, solved the problem, and began a search to see if other residents could be impacted by the same problem. The time from notification to solution: Less than seven hours.
What was the problem? They determined that a mapping error had caused portions of the subdivision where this resident had the problem of being excluded from planned outage notifications. The error was identified and corrected. They also told me that, as a result of this mapping error, they are looking to see if there are other mapping inconsistencies in Ivins to improve future notifications.
That’s exactly the kind of response residents deserve: identify the problem, explain it, fix it, and work to prevent it from happening again.
Please Let Me Know
I don’t expect Rocky Mountain Power to be perfect. No organization is. But they have been very responsive to the concerns we’ve raised, and I appreciate the willingness of their leadership team to engage directly with the City and with residents.
If you experience recurring outage issues, notification problems, or other concerns related to electric service, please let me know (mike@MikeScott4Ivins.com). While I can’t promise a solution, I can make sure the issue gets to the right people.
Communities works best when residents, the City, regulators, and service providers work together. Last year’s outage concerns and this week’s notification issue are good examples of that process working the way it should.
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