LIPA Restores Over 40,000 Outages in the Wake of Severe Thunderstorms
Uniondale, NY—July 19, 2006—The Long Island Power Authority (LIPA)
reported that as of 1 pm today approximately 7,500 electric customers remain out
of service as a result of last night’s severe thunderstorms that crossed Long
Island bringing winds gusts recorded at up to 60 miles per hour.
Tuesday night’s
thunderstorms followed a three day heat wave which saw LIPA break its all time
usage record of 5267 megawatts set on August 5, 2005 with a new usage record of
5427 megawatts recorded on Tuesday. LIPA also set a sales record of 103,286 MWH
of electricity sold, exceeding the 100,000 MWH level for the first time in
history. LIPA was able to meet the demand for power and, in fact, assisted other
parts of the region by providing both voltage and electric supply support to
help keep the lights on for tens of thousands of customers outside the LIPA
service territory.
LIPA Chairman, Richard M. Kessel, said that he hoped to have most customers
restored to service by midnight this evening and that those customers who had to
wait until tomorrow morning to get service back would be called by LIPA in
advance. LIPA has a full complement of crews working this afternoon, this
evening and through the night and is also bringing in ten crews from National
Grid and ten crews from New York State Electric & Gas Company (NYSEG) to assist
in power restoration.
“LIPA was able to meet the huge surge in power consumption caused by the heat
wave through its aggressive program of adding 1100 megawatts of new resources
into the system over the last few years,” said LIPA Chairman Richard Kessel. “In
fact, LIPA directly assisted the New York Independent Service Operator (ISO),
the New England ISO and Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland (PJM) by providing
needed voltage support to help assist keeping the lights on throughout the
region. Furthermore, LIPA assisted the State of Connecticut last night by
providing emergency power over its NUSCO Cable as well as stopping the flow of
power over the Cross Sound Cable so that it could be used for Connecticut
residents. LIPA’s ability to provide sufficient power for its own customers and
assist other parts of the region is a significant step forward in having a
secure and reliable energy supply for Long Island.”
Kessel said that last night’s storm created approximately 52,000 outages of
which 42,000 have already been restored. All of these outages were storm related
and not related to a lack of power supply. LIPA employees are working around the
clock and LIPA expects to have almost everyone back by midnight this evening.
“Our employees are doing a terrific job and working in difficult conditions
to get everyone back as quickly as possible,” said Kessel. “Our crews and
contractors, along with Call Center employees and National Grid and NYSEG crews
will get the job done quickly.”
Kessel said that LIPA is also watching the development of tropical storm
Beryl, which has formed approximately 100 miles off the Carolina shore. While
current forecasts show the storm passing approximately 100 miles southeast of
Montauk Thursday night or Friday morning, Long Island is in the possible cone of
impact and if the storm moves westward, could experience effects from the storm.
Kessel said that both LIPA and KeySpan have called a Storm Anticipation meeting
for this afternoon and that both companies are beginning to make plans to deal
with this tropical storm should it impact Long Island in any way. Kessel said
that LIPA would update customers if, in fact, the storm more directly approaches
Long Island over the next couple of days. |
