Pennsylvania had trouble keeping power on
There were 71 “reportable outage events” in 2024, the largest number since the PUC began keeping records.
Pennsylvania endured its most unreliable year of electric service in more than three decades, and local customers of Duquesne Light and West Penn Power felt the brunt of it, according to the state’s latest Electric Service Reliability Report.
The Public Utility Commission said the commonwealth logged 71 “reportable outage events” in 2024 — the highest since record keeping began — knocking out power for more than 2.8 million residents and businesses.
That’s a sharp jump from 49 events and 1.67 million customers affected in 2023.
Commission officials said the culprits were familiar: severe storms, tree damage and an aging grid.
And while new grid technology has helped utilities limit the number of customers affected in some cases, it often complicates repairs and leaves those who do lose service in the dark for longer.
Trouble spots in Allegheny County
Duquesne Light, which serves Allegheny and Beaver counties, reported seven major outage events last year, cutting service to more than 216,000 customers.
The worst came June 17, when storms knocked out power to more than 108,000.
Trees outside of rights-of-way and failing equipment were behind nearly half of Duquesne Light’s interruptions.
The PUC said reliability slipped noticeably compared to 2023, with outage times and overall service minutes lost both climbing.
Reliability indicators worsened from 2023: the company’s CAIDI (average repair time) rose to 156 minutes — well above the benchmark — and its SAIDI (average outage minutes per customer) doubled to 127 minutes.
The report urged DLC to expand vegetation management, harden circuits most vulnerable to trees and accelerate repairs to restore reliability to 2023 levels.
“Duquesne Light needs to step up its vegetation management and continue hardening its system if it’s going to restore the improvements it made just a year earlier,” the report stated.
Fayette, Washington, Westmoreland hit hard
West Penn Power, serving much of the Mon Valley and surrounding counties, fared no better. The utility logged 12 major outages in 2024, leaving nearly 285,000 customers without service.
Spokesperson Todd Meyers said the biggest culprit has been worsening storms and trees outside of company rights-of-way.
“In 2024 and in recent years, increasingly severe weather — particularly summer and winter windstorms that blow off-right-of-way trees or limbs into our lines and other electrical infrastructure — have led to numerous outages,” Meyers said. “Many storms approach major event status … however, they don’t quite cross that threshold and are included and factor negatively into our results.”
He noted about 90% of tree-related outages are caused by off-ROW trees — areas the utility doesn’t typically have authority to trim.
West Penn spends about $47 million annually on vegetation management, he said, and additional resources from a recently approved PUC rate settlement will help address problem trees beyond those rights-of-way.
The outages piled up in spring and summer storms, including events in April, June, July and September that each left thousands in the dark.
West Penn shaved some time off the length of the average outage but still fell short of state standards.
The utility’s CAIDI was 200 minutes (down from 266 but still too high), while SAIDI was 255 minutes — double the state target.
Despite the challenges, FirstEnergy has set statewide performance targets tied to its new base rate settlement: cutting outage duration (SAIDI) by 3.5% and frequency (SAIFI) by 2.5% by 2028.
“Keeping the lights on 100% of the time … is our goal,” Meyers said. “We are always looking to refine our storm-response process to speed restoration times and make the right investments to harden our system to prevent outages in the first place.”
Regulators urged West Penn to ramp up tree-trimming and continue investing in system upgrades, including automatic switching devices that can cut outage sizes.
As with Duquesne Light, trees and equipment failures accounted for most disruptions. Regulators pressed West Penn to step up vegetation management, deploy more automated switching devices and invest through its Long-Term Infrastructure Improvement Plan to strengthen weak points on the grid.
Vegetation and storms still biggest threat
Across the state, storms that toppled off-right-of-way trees and broke weakened limbs caused the majority of 2024’s blackouts.
The PUC warned utilities to rethink their tree management and capital improvement programs and explore advanced tools — such as improved conductor protection and selective undergrounding — while balancing the cost impact on ratepayers.
On the equipment side, Meyers pointed to West Penn’s Long-Term Infrastructure Improvement Plan (LTIIP).
Between 2020 and 2024, the utility invested $147 million, and under LTIIP III it plans to spend nearly $370 million by 2029 on upgrades ranging from stronger poles to more automated devices.
“Our continued investments in a smart, modern energy grid coupled with an expanded vegetation management program … will help us deliver on our commitment to providing dependable electricity,” he said.
Meyers added that selective undergrounding is being studied, though costs are high, and that new tools such as the company’s AI-driven Advanced Vegetation Analytics Tool are being deployed to predict where trees pose the greatest risk.
The scope of the work is vast.
“West Penn Power has rebuilt only a small percentage of its overhead lines. And while that work has yielded significant localized benefits … it has minimal impact on the total system performance. The effort will require numerous LTIIP iterations over multiple years, and we are committed to making that happen,” Meyers said.
Between them, Duquesne Light and West Penn Power accounted for nearly 20 of the state’s 71 major outages last year — underscoring just how vulnerable southwestern Pennsylvania remains.
In Allegheny County, thousands of homes and businesses went dark multiple times in 2024.
In Fayette, Washington and Westmoreland counties, West Penn’s customers saw repeated large-scale blackouts, many during peak storm season.
The PUC emphasized that reliability improvements must be paired with affordability, but said the message to utilities is clear: Spend more now to avoid leaving customers powerless later.
The full 2024 Electric Service Reliability Report is available on the PUC’s website at puc.pa.gov.
