Councilor All Charged Up About Recent Power Outages

Town Council Vice Chairman Tom Dolan said last week that he's getting frustrated by the number of power outages in Londonderry, and wants Public Service of New Hampshire to do something about it.

"I continue to be disappointed in the performance of PSNH and the fact that even without the benefit of any ice storms, we continue to have power outages in town," Dolan said at the June 3 council meeting. "I think the unreliable performance and service is becoming remarkable."

[Watch the full meeting here.]

Dolan said he's not sure what the town can do about it, but asked Acting Town Manager and Police Chief William Hart if he could give some feedback to the power company.

"I know they complain about branches coming down in heavy ice storms, knocking lines down," Dolan said. "I don't know what the excuse is now. On my street, we had three last week."

Council Chairman John Farrell asked Hart to have Acting Fire Chief Darren O'Brien renew the town's relationship with PSNH to ask what the company is doing to reduce the number of outages in town.

Contacted by Londonderry Patch on Friday, PSNH spokesman Michael Skelton issued the following statement in response to Dolan's concerns:

"PSNH takes its role to provide safe, reliable service very seriously and is always looking for opportunities to improve. We’ve taken a comprehensive approach to improving our overhead and underground distribution lines in this area. There has been significant reliability work in this area, whether it’s been upgrading older underground lines, testing poles, or replacing equipment. Londonderry was also selected as one of our pilot communities to deploy 'smart grid' technology that allows us to monitor key circuits and more quickly switch and re-route power to keep customers on in the event of an outage. We also have a very active tree trimming program as tree limbs and debris are the most common cause of power outages, though not in this case.

The recent outages referenced at the Town Council meeting were limited to a neighborhood served by underground lines and caused by two separate underground faults to the line. Unlike with overhead lines, it’s challenging to identify problems on underground lines before they happen and can be time consuming to locate and repair problems when they do occur. Londonderry, like some other communities in Southern New Hampshire, actually requires underground lines in new residential developments and has for many years (decades in some cases). This means there is quite a bit of existing underground lines that use older 'direct burial' technology which is susceptible to faults that can be caused by moisture or shifts in ground, among other things.

He added that PSNH has reached out to O'Brien and Hart and will be happy to meet and answer any questions they have.