HARRISBURG — One million more Pennsylvanians experienced electric service disruptions in 2024 than the year prior as strong storms, downed trees and aging infrastructure reset the record for reportable power outages.
The annual Electric Reliability Report from the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission found that there were 71 reportable outages last year, topping the 63 outages from 2021 and surging beyond the counts of 49 in 2023 and 42 in 2022.
A reportable outage event is described in the report as an event when 5% of a utility company’s total customers or 2,500 customers, whichever is less, experiences an outage of at least six consecutive hours.
A combined 2,882,795 Pennsylvanians, or 22% of the commonwealth’s population, experienced a sustained outage last year, up from 1,670,067 in 2023. It’s the highest figure since 2011, when 3,861,724 experienced outages in a year where Hurricane Irene and the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee caused substantial flood damage.
“The total number of customers interrupted, customer minutes interrupted, and interruption events all increased significantly in 2024. This had been on a downtrend since 2019 and PUC hopes it’s an aberration,” the report states.
PUC began recording outage data in 1993, which it uses to produce its annual report on electric service reliability. Since the early years, the number of reportable outage events has grown. In the first five years, beginning in 1994, the annual respective counts were 10, 10, 9, 9, 12. Compare that to the past five years beginning in 2024: 71, 49, 42, 63, 46.
The report tracks and details outages by the state’s 11 electric distribution companies: Duquesne Light, PECO Energy, PPL Electric, Metropolitan Edison Co., Pennsylvania Electric Co., Pennsylvania Power Co., West Penn Power Co., Citizens’ Electric Co., Pike County Light & Power Co., UGI Utilities Inc., Wellsboro Electric Co.
Only PECO, UGI and Wellsboro, the latter two classified as small companies, achieved the benchmark and standard metrics in all three performance categories measured by PUC for 2024 and the three-year averages from 2022 through 2024.
“PPL experienced 17 reportable outage events in 2024, which was the most such events reported by an EDC for any of the past 32 years. It is expected that PPL should return to a benchmark performer in 2025, barring a continuance of double-digit reportable outage events,” the report states.
Aging infrastructure is attributed as causing some of the growth in reportable outages, especially that which has been badly worn by severe weather. However, PUC found that even those electric distribution companies with significant investments toward improving infrastructure have experienced outages more frequently.
The biggest cause cited by PUC in 2024, as was the case in 2021, was overhanging limbs and downed trees that topple from above and beyond the right-of-way clearing zones and onto distribution lines.
“Since 2015, and continuing throughout 2024, vegetation has been the number one cause of outages and lost customer-minutes in Pennsylvania,” the report states.