Bill Text: IL SB2507 | 2011-2012 | 97th General Assembly | Introduced

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Bill Title: 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.

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1-0)

Status: (Failed) 2013-01-08 - Session Sine Die [SB2507 Detail]

Download: Illinois-2011-SB2507-Introduced.html

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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.
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A BILL FOR
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AN ACT concerning regulation.
Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois,
represented in the General Assembly:
Section 5. The Public Utilities Act is amended by adding
Article 23 as follows:
(220 ILCS 5/Art. XXIII heading new)
ARTICLE XXIII. ELECTRICAL OUTAGES AND EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS
(220 ILCS 5/23-101 new)
Sec. 23-101. Legislative findings.
(a) Severe storms of 2011 exposed systemic weaknesses in
the performance of regulated electric utilities in terms of an
electric utility's ability to respond to major emergencies and
to coordinate with municipalities and counties who are charged
with disaster mitigation and protecting public health, safety,
and welfare. Shortcomings include:
(1) the inability to process, track, prioritize, and
watch over down wires that obstruct first responders'
access to streets and divert fire and police resources to
protect wires for unreasonably long times;
(2) the inability to provide municipal and county
leadership reliable and timely information regarding scope
of an outage, location of stricken areas, availability of

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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(c) The failure by the electric utility to implement
emergency management protocols and reporting requirements,
failure to restore 75% of critical public safety facilities as
specified in paragraph (3) of subsection (b) in Section 23-110
of this Act within a 24-hour period upon declaration of an AOE
or 90% of critical public safety facilities within a 36-hour
period upon declaration of an AOE, 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.
(220 ILCS 5/23-130 new)
Sec. 23-130. Direction to Commission; report to State
leadership.
(a) The Commission shall adopt rules within one year after
the effective date of this amendatory Act of the 97th General
Assembly implementing the provisions of this Article.
(b) The Commission shall deliver to the Governor, Speaker
of the House, Senate President, House and Senate Minority
Leaders, and Attorney General within 18 months after the
effective date of this amendatory Act of the 97th General
Assembly a report providing data on industry best practices
among regulated electricity-delivering utilities in the United

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