Following power outage complaints, We Energies agrees to make improvements in Glendale

Nearly two years after the City of Glendale filed a complaint against We Energies on behalf of residents fed up with frequent and widespread power outages, the city's Common Council approved a settlement agreement with We Energies to improve electrical infrastructure in Glendale.

City officials had been negotiating in closed sessions over the past few months and approved the agreement March 25.

We Energies' corporate counsel said the company had already been working to improve its services in Glendale but agreed to take on additional projects to settle the city's concerns, according to an August 2023 letter from We Energies proposing to resolve the city's complaint filed in 2022.

After months of negotiations, the settlement Glendale and We Energies agreed upon requires the utility to assess and improve infrastructure along Brown Deer Road, Teutonia Avenue, Range Line Road and Green Bay Avenue, according to the agreement.

While We Energies pursues those upgrades, Glendale's complaint before the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin will remain on hold for three years.

If the terms of the settlement are met after three years, Glendale officials agreed to file a recommendation that the PSC dismiss the case. If not, the city reserves the right to ask the commission to reactivate the case hearing.

The PSC is an agency responsible for regulating Wisconsin public utilities, including setting quality standards and ensuring they are met.

In an op-ed published in the Journal Sentinel in September 2023, Glendale Mayor Bryan Kennedy said the city was the first municipality in the state to file a case with the PSC to address outages.

City Administrator Karl Warwick said work to address the energy service inconsistency started before the settlement was agreed upon, but will ramp up soon to complete several projects by the end of 2024.

Glendale residents wanted more from their energy provider for years

Kennedy said a handful of residents engaged with the issue have reached out to him to express their belief that approval of the settlement agreement was a move in the right direction.

In July 2022, Glendale's Common Council approved the resolution that authorized city staff to file a complaint with the PSC over the number and the duration of outages that had occurred over the last several years in Glendale.

The resolution claims We Energies failed to take sufficient action to prevent outages in spite of resident and city requests to do so. “Neighborhoods within the City of Glendale have experienced approximately nine electric outages, affecting thousands of customers over the last 12 months,” according to the resolution.

Filed by City Administrator Karl Warwick, the complaint specifically requested We Energies reconfigure electrical poles along Green Bay Road so that they are below ground. The current, above-ground poles have been continually damaged by trees and other objects, leaving thousands of residents and businesses without electricity each time they are damaged, according to the complaint.

The council also encouraged residents to file their own complaints to the commission.

Over 70 residents did so, Kennedy said.

“It was the combination of the city complaint and all the individual complaints that caught the attention of the PSC and moved this case forward,” Kennedy said. "All we wanted was for the PSC to rule that a place like Glendale needs more attention than they're giving it. It should not consistently be at the bottom of their service area.”

Settlement terms: Brown Deer Road, Teutonia Avenue, Range Line Road and Green Bay Avenue

The agreement outlines three new projects We Energies committed to completing by the end of 2024.

• One project will move 1,900 feet of three-phase mainline on the Brown Deer feeder underground, which would impact around 500 customers in Glendale.

• Another project will install underground facilities and transfer 50 customers from the Brown Deer feeder and 40 from the Teutonia feeder to the Range Line feeder.

• The third will install a new distribution automation line switching device between the Brown Deer feeder and Teutonia feeder serving Glendale, impacting 1,400 people.

An additional project baked into the agreement will be completed in concert with WisDOT's work reconstructing State Highway 57. We Energies will evaluate whether to relocate, replace, or move underground infrastructure along Green Bay Avenue. The expected completion of this project will likely extend beyond 2024, Warwick said, since it is tied to WisDOT's work along the highway.

The agreement also stipulates that We Energies must adhere to objective, industry-recognized standards for energy service maintenance called SAIDI (System Average Interruption Duration Index) and SAIFI (System Average Interruption Frequency Index), which assess the quantity and duration of outages, respectively.

If Glendale's numbers for these indices continue to far exceed We Energies' averages, the utility is obligated to address the issues, according to the agreement.

Utility says it has been addressing energy inconsistency in Glendale

We Energies is adamant the company has already been invested in addressing Glendale's energy inconsistency. In the energy company's August 2023 proposal to resolve the city's complaint, Kate Phillips, corporate counsel for We Energies and author of the proposal, said the company has already invested over "$4 million in significant resources over the past five years into improving its service to the City."

In particular, Phillips said the company has invested $1.8 million into upgrading the electric distribution system serving Glendale to improve reliability and $2.65 million on trimming trees to help reduce outage frequency.

Phillips also said the company has two additional projects in the pipeline that will improve electric utilities for 3,275 customers in Glendale and 32,000 customers total in neighboring areas.

The two projects cost a combined $3.55 million and seek to upgrade distribution automation line switching devices, which Phillips said would reduce by two-thirds the number of customers impacted by most outage events.

How many outages did Glendale have?

In Glendale's reports to the PSC, city staff invoked outage data to make the case for the commission to launch a formal investigation.

According to the city, between 2017 and 2022, Glendale saw 144 electrical outages, or 24 outages per year, according to a January 2023 supporting memo the city sent to the PSC.

In the memo, Warwick cited Wisconsin state laws that set standards for electrical service reliability. According to the standards, "utilities are expected to provide sufficient resources to assure reasonably adequate and reliable service to all of their customers under normal operating conditions."

Contact Claudia Levens at clevens@gannett.com. Follow her on X at @levensc13.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: We Energies agrees to improve Glendale electrical infrastructure