Duquesne Light Debuts Upgraded Outage Management System

PITTSBURGH, PA — Following a public relations disaster in its response to last week's severe storms, Duquesne Light on Wednesday unveiled its new outage management system. Its linchpin is an improved interactive and detailed outage map on the utility's website and app.

Duquesne Light officials said the new system provides greater transparency and more real-time insight into outages across the company’s service territory along with improved outage-related communications.

Kristy Stone, Duquesne Light Company vice president and chief customer officer, described the system upgrade as "a more intuitive way for customers to gain real-time insight when they lose power. This technology gives us the ability to respond to outages more efficiently while ensuring that customers are properly notified throughout the restoration process.”

The outage system improvements were announced a day after Duquesne Light acknowledged that its response to the swath of severe storms last week that knocked out power to more than 90,000 customers was inadequate. The utility sent an email to customers pledging to perform better in the future.

Duquesne Light says the system now includes the outage start date and time; crew status; number of active outages; weather updates; and warming and cooling centers when activated. It also features localized estimated service restoration times for specific addresses as well as the cause of each outage.

To go to the new outage system web page, click here.