97TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY
State of Illinois
2011 and 2012
SB2507

 

Introduced 10/24/2011, by Sen. Susan Garrett

 

SYNOPSIS AS INTRODUCED:
 
220 ILCS 5/Art. XXIII heading new
220 ILCS 5/23-101 new
220 ILCS 5/23-105 new
220 ILCS 5/23-110 new
220 ILCS 5/23-115 new
220 ILCS 5/23-120 new
220 ILCS 5/23-125 new
220 ILCS 5/23-130 new

    Amends the Public Utilities Act. Creates a new Article concerning electrical outages and emergency preparedness for electric utilities. Defines "area outage emergency". Provides that an electric utility must establish an Emergency Operations Center capable of receiving communications from municipalities and counties regarding down power lines or other damage during an area outage emergency. Provides that the failure of an electric utility to implement an emergency management plan or comply with plan provisions shall result in the denial of exemption from paying damages under the Act. Provides that an annual report shall be provided to a municipality or county that includes specified data sets. Provides that an electric utility is responsible for implementing the emergency management protocols and reporting requirements without diminishment of investment into the upgrade and maintenance of the existing system. Provides that the Illinois Commerce Commission shall take into account the performance of an electric utility in implementing emergency management protocols and reporting requirements in future rate increase cases. Provides that failure by the electric utility to implement emergency management protocols and reporting requirements, other specified criteria, or any diminishment of investment into the upgrade and maintenance of the existing system in order to meet the implementation of emergency management protocols and reporting requirements or critical public safety facilities restoration timeframes shall result in a decrease of 100 basis points in the return on equity sought within the future proposed rate increase case. Effective January 1, 2012.


LRB097 13715 CEL 58258 b

 

 

A BILL FOR

 

SB2507LRB097 13715 CEL 58258 b

1    AN ACT concerning regulation.
 
2    Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois,
3represented in the General Assembly:
 
4    Section 5. The Public Utilities Act is amended by adding
5Article 23 as follows:
 
6    (220 ILCS 5/Art. XXIII heading new)
7
ARTICLE XXIII. ELECTRICAL OUTAGES AND EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS

 
8    (220 ILCS 5/23-101 new)
9    Sec. 23-101. Legislative findings.
10    (a) Severe storms of 2011 exposed systemic weaknesses in
11the performance of regulated electric utilities in terms of an
12electric utility's ability to respond to major emergencies and
13to coordinate with municipalities and counties who are charged
14with disaster mitigation and protecting public health, safety,
15and welfare. Shortcomings include:
16        (1) the inability to process, track, prioritize, and
17    watch over down wires that obstruct first responders'
18    access to streets and divert fire and police resources to
19    protect wires for unreasonably long times;
20        (2) the inability to provide municipal and county
21    leadership reliable and timely information regarding scope
22    of an outage, location of stricken areas, availability of

 

 

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1    repair crews, and restoration data;
2        (3) being unprepared to identify and restore critical
3    public infrastructure and facilities as specified in
4    paragraph (3) of subsection (b) in Section 23-110 of this
5    Act within a timely manner;
6        (4) the failure of an electric utility's customer
7    service information systems, resulting in inundation of
8    municipalities and counties with diverted electric utility
9    customers and diversion of municipal and county resources
10    from other critical functions; and
11        (5) widespread outages in the summer of 2011 that also
12    identified shortcomings regarding infrastructure,
13    maintenance, and vegetation management and information
14    annually reported to municipalities; the impact of severe
15    weather may have been greatly mitigated if vegetation
16    management better protected lines, chronically troubled
17    circuits had been addressed, and additional switches to
18    permit re-routing of power had been installed; annual
19    reports provided by the utility to local authorities lack
20    adequate information on local system reliability, repeat
21    non-weather related outages, routine maintenance, system
22    monitoring, and planned infrastructure improvement to be
23    useful.
24    (b) Electric utilities shall be held accountable under this
25Act for such substantial shortcomings and are required to take
26meaningful corrective action.

 

 

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1    (c) The Commission is the appropriate agency to prepare and
2submit to the General Assembly information benchmarking
3electric utilities performance and restoration resources
4against those of comparable utilities. The Commission shall
5identify best practices and submit such data to the General
6Assembly for the development of additional future legislation.
 
7    (220 ILCS 5/23-105 new)
8    Sec. 23-105. Definitions. For the purposes of this Article,
9"area outage emergency" or "AOE" means:
10        (1) an outage caused by severe weather, natural
11    disaster, disruption, damage or destruction of
12    transmission or distribution facilities, or other event or
13    related events in temporal proximity resulting in
14    widespread loss of power locally or regionally;
15        (2) a loss of power to 30,000 or more customers
16    system-wide; or
17        (3) a loss of power to 10% or more of customers in an
18    individual municipality or county.
 
19    (220 ILCS 5/23-110 new)
20    Sec. 23-110. Emergency preparedness and emergency
21management.
22    (a) An electric utility must establish an Emergency
23Operations Center (EOC), staffed 24 hours per day, 7 days per
24week, capable of receiving communications from municipalities

 

 

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1and counties regarding down power lines or other damage during
2an AOE.
3    The electric utility EOC must be able to receive messages
4by fax, phone, text, e-mail, or other agreed upon
5communications means.
6    The electric utility EOC must be able to transmit
7confirmation of receipt and acknowledgement of information.
8    In the case of a report by a public agency of down lines or
9equipment blocking streets, an electric utility EOC must be
10capable of providing information to municipality or county
11officials as to when utility crews and line watchers shall be
12dispatched and the estimated time to reopen a street or streets
13reported within 2 hours of receipt.
14    (b) The first 24 hours after onset of the AOE, an electric
15utility:
16        (1) shall initialize operations of a communications
17    center to provide direct communication to municipal and
18    county officials affected by the AOE;
19        (2) shall ensure that an external affairs
20    representative is in direct contact with the municipality
21    or county; and
22        (3) must receive and provide confirmation of receipt to
23    municipality or county of priority of critical public
24    safety facilities for restoration, including, but not
25    limited to, the reopening:
26            (A) of streets to permit access for emergency

 

 

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1        response and disaster remediation;
2            (B) of potable water facilities, sanitary sewer
3        and storm sewer facilities, treatment plants, pump
4        stations, and lift stations;
5            (C) of hospitals and nursing homes; and
6            (D) of municipal and county emergency operations
7        centers, relief shelters, police and fire facilities,
8        and government telecommunications facilities.
9    (c) Within 48 hours after the onset of the AOE, an electric
10utility must provide:
11        (1) municipal or county officials with an on-site staff
12    member qualified, authorized, and equipped to facilitate
13    restoration efforts, assign crews, prioritize work to be
14    performed, status of restoration of identified critical
15    facilities, and capable of accessing utility information
16    systems to direct prioritization of restoration work; an
17    on-site utility staff member may be shared between multiple
18    municipalities at a single municipal site, but no such
19    shared site shall encompass more than 10 square miles; and
20        (2) the municipality or county, at least once every 4
21    hours, with a current summary of the number of customers
22    out, number of repair tickets out, number of customers by
23    repair tickets currently being worked, and the number of
24    crews operating in that municipality.
25    (d) After 48 hours, an electric utility must continue to
26provide:

 

 

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1        (1) a staff member and 4-hour updates until final 1% of
2    customer restoration; and
3        (2) 4-hour updates until full restoration.
4    (e) An electric utility shall provide:
5        (1) a municipality or county with a report within 5
6    business days after completion of initial restoration
7    detailing its plans for making full repairs and rebalancing
8    of distribution system; the report must include a checklist
9    of remaining repairs and a timetable for completion;
10        (2) an improve web-based electronic reporting system
11    to provide real-time updates showing outages by municipal
12    or county boundaries, more accurate information as to
13    location and existence of outages, and information on
14    repair crews dispatched; and
15        (3) a report, within 14 business days of completion of
16    initial restoration, verifying compliance with the
17    procedures required in this Section.
18    (f) An electric utility:
19        (1) shall utilize industry best practices to provide
20    sufficient customer communications capacity through
21    combination of telephone, internet, or other resources so
22    that customers may promptly report outages, access
23    information, and confirm restoration of service; and
24        (2) must identify performance measures on customer
25    service in AOE situations as part of the annual report.
26    (g) An emergency management plan must implement all of the

 

 

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1requirements of this Article. The emergency management plan
2must be delivered to the Commission, municipality, and county
3officials and be updated annually. The emergency management
4plan must identify and map which municipalities and counties
5may share an on-site utility staff member during an AOE and
6identify a site where staff members may be located.
 
7
8    (220 ILCS 5/23-115 new)
9    Sec. 23-115. Accountability.
10    (a) The failure of an electric utility to implement an
11emergency management plan or otherwise comply with this Act or
12rules adopted under this Act shall result in denial of a waiver
13from paying damages to customers under Section 16-125 of this
14Act.
15    (b) The failure of an electric utility to comply with plan
16provisions in a municipality or unincorporated area of a county
17shall result in denial of a waiver from paying damages to
18customers within municipality or unincorporated areas under
19Section 16-125 of this Act.
20    (c) The electric utility must give notice of application
21for a waiver from paying damages to customers under Section
2216-125 of this Act to all covered municipalities and counties
23to permit them to object to the waiver. The Illinois Attorney
24General is authorized to appear for and represent all covered
25municipalities and counties in any proceedings.

 

 

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1    (d) The electric utility must give public notice of an
2application for a waiver from paying damages to customers under
3Section 16-125 of this Act to permit members of the public to
4object to the petition. The Illinois Attorney General is
5authorized to appear for and represent all covered customers in
6any proceedings.
 
7    (220 ILCS 5/23-120 new)
8    Sec. 23-120. Annual reporting to municipalities.
9    (a) An annual report provided to a municipality or county
10shall be additionally provided in an electronic format and data
11sets in the report shall be sortable and searchable.
12    (b) The annual report must include the following:
13        (1) tree trimming by circuit for the report year,
14    current year, and next year's schedule;
15        (2) capital investment by circuit, including, but not
16    limited to lines, infrastructure, and transformers;
17        (3) outage analysis by circuit, including, but not
18    limited to, wildlife, trees, storm, equipment failures,
19    overhead versus underground lines, and comparable System
20    Average Interruption Frequency Index and Customer Average
21    Interruption Duration Index data;
22        (4) resident complaints, including, but not limited
23    to, the number of complaints, type of complaint, work order
24    responses, and restoration time;
25        (5) comparison of current year statistics versus the

 

 

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1    reporting year;
2        (6) a hazardous tree list;
3        (7) annual inspection report by circuit including, but
4    not limited to the summary of what infrastructure issues
5    are discovered, results of thermographic or other
6    systematic evaluation of line conditions, inspection
7    cycle, which circuits done, action plan, and corrective
8    analysis;
9        (8) identification of problem areas based upon
10    national standards;
11        (9) repeat and pocket outage analysis with action plan;
12        (10) smart grid implementation plan for municipalities
13    and counties; and
14        (11) tracking customer waiting times and abandoned
15    calls.
 
16    (220 ILCS 5/23-125 new)
17    Sec. 23-125. Reliability and system maintenance.
18    (a) The electric utility is responsible for implementing
19the emergency management protocols and reporting requirements
20described in this Article without diminishment of investment
21into the upgrade and maintenance of the existing system.
22    (b) The Commission shall take into account performance of
23an electric utility in implementing emergency management
24protocols and reporting requirements in future rate increase
25cases.

 

 

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1    (c) The failure by the electric utility to implement
2emergency management protocols and reporting requirements,
3failure to restore 75% of critical public safety facilities as
4specified in paragraph (3) of subsection (b) in Section 23-110
5of this Act within a 24-hour period upon declaration of an AOE
6or 90% of critical public safety facilities within a 36-hour
7period upon declaration of an AOE, or any diminishment of
8investment into the upgrade and maintenance of the existing
9system in order to meet the implementation of emergency
10management protocols and reporting requirements or critical
11public safety facilities restoration timeframes shall result
12in a decrease of 100 basis points in the return on equity
13sought within the future proposed rate increase case.
 
14    (220 ILCS 5/23-130 new)
15    Sec. 23-130. Direction to Commission; report to State
16leadership.
17    (a) The Commission shall adopt rules within one year after
18the effective date of this amendatory Act of the 97th General
19Assembly implementing the provisions of this Article.
20    (b) The Commission shall deliver to the Governor, Speaker
21of the House, Senate President, House and Senate Minority
22Leaders, and Attorney General within 18 months after the
23effective date of this amendatory Act of the 97th General
24Assembly a report providing data on industry best practices
25among regulated electricity-delivering utilities in the United

 

 

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1States relating to major weather related outages, coordination
2with local authorities, public information, customer
3communication, restoration resources, including crews
4available per capita, per customer, and per square mile of
5service territory, and comparing Illinois regulated electric
6utilities to said benchmarks, and making recommendations based
7on such data.
 
8    Section 99. Effective date. This Act takes effect January
91, 2012.