Investigation Into Electric Reliability Stalls

COLUMBUS, Ohio—Central Ohio was hit by high winds and bone-chilling cold in the past year.

One weather event, though, may stand out above them all—the wind storm in September.

More than two million Ohioans were left without power—some up to seven days. Now, a call for an investigation into Ohio utilities seems to be stalled, NBC 4‘s Mikaela Hunt reported.

The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio is allowing American Electric Power to defer storm-related costs from the windstorm.

But PUCO has yet to formally investigate the reliability of the electric grid.

The Ohio Consumers’ Council made a request for an investigation a month ago.

The OCC said PUCO has the ability to begin the investigation whenever they want to do so.

In the wake of the most recent weather, NBC 4 wanted to find out why the investigation hasn’t started yet.

“It’s not just a matter of how they respond during a wind storm or in the aftermath, but it’s proactive. What are they doing to decrease the chances of outages all year round?“ said Ryan Lippe, of the Ohio Consumers’ Council.

NBC 4 spoke to PUCO Friday, which said they have had some preliminary informal conversations with the utilities about reliability issues.

But the bottom line is that by law, they can take as long as they need to investigate.

The group said it takes reliability seriously and hopes to formally investigate these issues after learning more about AEP’s electric security plan.

Stay with NBC 4 and refresh nbc4i.com for additional information.
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