Green Mountain Power Aims to Eliminate Outages by 2030

Lineman Cody Crowe upgrading a Green Mountain Power line in Eden Credit: Kevin Mccallum ©️ Seven Days

Vermont’s largest electric utility, Green Mountain Power, says increasingly damaging storms are forcing it to make major upgrades to the state’s power grid that will protect customers from disruptive outages.

The utility is asking state regulators to let it spend up to $280 million over the next two years on projects designed to help it keep the lights on and lower the costs of restoring power.

By upgrading some power lines to make them more resistant to falling trees, putting other lines underground and giving more people in rural areas free backup storage systems such as Tesla Powerwalls, the utility hopes to make outages a thing of the past. It’s calling the push the Zero Outages Initiative, which the company hopes to achieve by 2030.

“We all see the severe impacts from storms, we know the impact outages have on your lives, and the status quo is no longer enough,” Mari McClure, the utility’s president and CEO, said in a press release. “We are motivated to do all we can to combat climate change and create a Vermont that is sustainable and affordable, but we must move faster.”

Mari McClure Credit: Courtesy of Green Mountain Power

The utility is proposing to spend up to $250 million on line upgrades and $30 million on battery storage investments.

If approved, the first projects could get under way in spring or summer 2024. GMP said the projects could result in rate increases of up to 2 percent per year, though the utility argues that the upgrades will save ratepayers money in the long term.

The bulk of the line upgrades will entail adding what’s called a spacer cable over power lines. These half-inch steel cables are designed to protect transmission and distribution lines from falling trees and limbs. The utility has already upgraded 330 miles of lines with such cables and plans to significantly accelerate those upgrades.

In testimony filed on Monday with the state’s Public Utility Commission, Michael Burke, GMP’s vice president of field operations, cited an example of a power line in Sharon with a spacer cable that remained operational despite 11 trees falling against it during a recent storm.

A GMP power line protected by a spacer cable Credit: Courtesy of Green Mountain Power

The utility has already buried about 50 miles of power lines, none of which experienced outages from recent storms. Burke said GMP plans to “massively” increase the number of power lines it puts underground, particularly in residential areas.

“The time is now. We can no longer wait. It is critical that we rapidly accelerate proven solutions to help Vermont because climate change means we will see even more of this severe weather in the years ahead,” he told regulators.

The costs of responding to storm outages have soared in recent years, adding up to $115 million since 2013. Between 2013 and 2022, the average cost of a major storm response was $7.1 million. In the past 12 months, the utility spent $45 million on storm repairs, including $13.1 million from a wet snowfall in March and $4.1 million from the July flood.

In addition to preventing outages from happening in the first place, the utility wants to ramp up programs that protect customers from outages when they do happen.

Since 2017, GMP has been helping homeowners install battery storage in their homes to keep the lights on during outages. The program also allows GMP to draw on the batteries when needed, such as when power demand or energy prices soar.

A Powerwall in Colchester Credit: Courtesy of Green Mountain Power

Customers have typically paid $55 per month to lease Tesla Powerwalls. But GMP sees so much value in the devices that it wants to install them for free for some customers.

Homeowners in rural areas, where upgrading power lines would be cost-prohibitive, or in areas where the utility’s circuits need a boost would be good candidates for the devices.

The eastern and southeastern parts of Vermont suffer some of the most significant outages, according to a map the utility shared with the Public Utility Commission.

GMP was on track to install about 400 battery storage devices in homes this year already, according to testimony by Josh Castonguay, the company’s chief innovation and engineering executive. That rate could triple, to 1,200 annually, under the new proposal.

The $30 million investment could go to more than just Powerwalls. Some could be invested in microgrids, which create power islands that can remain running during emergencies by pairing renewable power, such as solar, with battery storage.
Other approaches to make the grid more resilient could include using grid-scale batteries, such as the mobile battery solution offered by Waterbury-based NOMAD Transportable Power Systems.

The utility is also exploring ways to use electric vehicles as backup power sources. There are about 10,000 EVs registered in Vermont, and 7,000 of them are owned by GMP customers.

“For some customers, having an EV in their garage is like having 10 Powerwall batteries to tap into,” Castonguay wrote.
Burke argued that the investments in grid resiliency would actually save ratepayers money over time by reducing the major storm-repair and line-maintenance costs.

“The risk in a small, rural state like Vermont is not that we will go too fast or accomplish too many projects but that we will not be able to move fast enough to meet the greatest challenge of our time,” he wrote.