Recently, the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) established a Critical Infrastructure Interdependency Working Group.
The announcement came in conjunction with the PUC issuing a policy statement on service outage response recovery and public notification guidelines. According to PUC Commissioner Pamela A. Witmer, the working group will bring together all utilities services and other partners to discuss best practices that will benefit Pennsylvania’s residential and business customers in the event of service outages.
To read a copy of Commissioner Witmer’s statement click here: http://www.puc.pa.gov/pcdocs/1272006.pdf
The working group will be made up of jurisdictional electric distribution companies (EDCs), incumbent telephone, facilities-based competitive telephone, water, wastewater, and natural gas distribution utilities with 5,000 or more customers as well as non-jurisdictional stakeholders such as cable providers and wireless carriers.
The PUC said among the working groups goals for the utility sectors are: to gain a better understanding of their interdependence; to develop cooperative best practices so that certain utility services can be maintained during major service outages; as well as coordinate the restoration of services during those outages.
The Commission voted 5-0 to finalize the policy statement and create the working group. The policy statement proposes additional preparation and response measures as guidance for EDCs after review of the utilities’ storm response for Hurricanes Irene and Sandy.
The Commission also addressed the cost/benefit analysis regarding implementation of the policy statement by the EDCs, and potentially other industries, especially in regards to the proposed storm damage and outage prediction models.
For more information please contact Kim Pizzingrilli or Alan Seltzer.