PPL Electric Utilities
More tree trimming means less power outages, PPL Electric Utilities believes.
So PPL will boost its "vegetation management" budget for 2012 by 36 percent, the company said Wednesday.
The importance of the program was highlighted by the Halloween weekend snowstorm, noted PPL, when 388,000 customers lost power.
Many of those outages stemmed from heavy, wet snow toppling leaf-laden trees and branches onto power lines.
"The effects of that snowstorm are a vivid example of the need for this work," said PPL's Gregory N. Dudkin, senior vice president of operations.
PPL said it's raising its "vegetation management" budget for its 29-county territory by $12 million, to a record $45 million.
(The amount to be spent in Lancaster County was not immediately available.)
As a result, it will trim along 8,600 miles of its 50,000 miles of power lines this year, including transmission and distribution lines.
That compares to 6,200 miles in 2011.
The program trims along the lines on a rotating basis, to ensure the whole system is regularly patrolled and maintained over time.
In its Lancaster region, PPL will trim along 1,295 miles of lines this year, up from 969 miles in 2011.
According to PPL, trees are the most common cause of outages, so the utility strives to keep them away from power lines.
State and federal regulations provide motivation to do the same.
The federal government has required electric utilities have a vegetation management program since the 2003 Northeast blackout.