PORT WASHINGTON — We Energies plans to spend hundreds of millions of rate-payer dollars over the next decade to bury hundreds of miles of power lines. It’s an effort to increase power reliability during storms like the one we saw over the weekend that resulted in 261,000 customers losing power.
But that massive project is off to a slower start than the company planned.
We Energies documents says 90 percent of the time a neighborhood on Port Washington’s north side loses power, it’s because of trees or tree limbs falling on overhead lines. It’s an issue that was scheduled to be solved last year by burying the lines, but it’s one of many on hold.
“Oftentimes we will lose power, but downtown will have power,” said Kathy Demaria. “There was a time it happened a lot.”
In a neighborhood full of towering trees, Demaria knows falling branches knock out power far more often here than what a typical We Energies customer experiences. We Energies data shows between 2018 and 2021, Demaria lost power 19 times.
“The biggest frustration is having a sump pump and worrying if your basements going to flood, that’s my number one worry,” she said.
We Energies identified a 6-mile stretch surrounding Demaria’s home to bury power lines, as the process called under-grounding helps prevent outages caused by bad weather and falling trees.
Demaria’s neighborhood is one of nine line burying projects scheduled for 2023 that have been deferred into the future.
“What are the implications of deferring these projects?” TMJ4 reporter Ben Jordan asked.
"Those specific projects, the implications were simply that they will get pushed a few years. As far as overall reliability, we did other reliability work,” We Energies spokesman Brendan Conway replied.
Conway says it isn’t the company’s fault, rather a supply chain issue leading to a shortage of the type of transformers needed for buried power lines.
“It would be incorrect to frame this as some sort of failure,” he said. “It is a nationwide shortage, there’s been congressional hearings on this."
If We Energies’ full grid hardening plan comes to fruition, the company will spend about $700 million over the next decade to make its service more reliable for customers, in part by burying 600 to 800 miles of power lines that are currently overhead.
“We’ll be watching this issue closely,” said Tom Content.
Content is the executive director of the Citizens Utility Board, a non-profit that advocates for residential and small business customers of Wisconsin Utility Companies.
“This utility is making a lot of money and we just want to make sure they’re spending the money wisely,” he said.
Content says he doesn’t have an issue with the plan to bury power lines, but he’s paying close attention to make sure the projects help those who need it most and whether it's cost effective.
“We Energies is expected to come in for another price increase proposal as soon as the end of March so we’ll be watching this and any other requests for increases on behalf of customers,” he said.
You can view documents related to the hardening projects here and here.
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