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 PECO Getting Ready for Spring Maintenance With Fly Over Patrols of its Aerial Electric System

Dépèche transmise le 18 mars 2009 par Business Wire

 PECO Getting Ready for Spring Maintenance With Fly Over Patrols of its Aerial Electric System

PHILADELPHIA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--As part of its annual spring maintenance programs, PECO is conducting aerial patrols of its electric transmission lines, beginning today for the next five weeks. Residents near transmission right-of-ways may notice low flying, slow moving helicopters along the utility’s transmission corridors.

PECO will use a blue-and-white helicopter and infrared cameras to inspect transmission towers, nearly 1,000 miles of aerial high-voltage lines and other electric equipment in York, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, Bucks and Philadelphia counties. PECO schedules these inspections early in the spring each year to identify needed maintenance on the transmission system prior to the higher electric loads in the summertime.

Haverfield Aviation, based in Gettysburg, Pa., along with utility line inspectors from Asplundh Infrared Services will conduct the inspections. PECO has notified local police and fire officials, as well as county emergency management offices, and other state and federal agencies as required.

PECO will inspect the entire transmission, looking at the tower structures, conductors, insulators, and other facilities. Additionally, one-third of the transmission system will be inspected at a slower, 3 mile-per-hour pace with the helicopters at times flying underneath the overhead lines and hovering just above the towers and conductors. The inspections can identify everything from tree clearances, loosened wire sleeves and broken strands of wire to bullet penetrations in wires and other equipment.

The aerial transmission inspections is one aspect of PECO’s wide-ranging electric reliability programs, which are geared toward preventing power outages for its 1.6 million customers in the Greater Philadelphia region. The City of Philadelphia has the second best electric reliability in the nation in 2008 among large metro areas. PECO also reduced outage events by 7.5 percent region-wide with 205,000 fewer customers affected by interruptions last year, compared with the previous year. Learn more about PECO’s reliability programs in the About PECO section at www.peco.com.

Based in Philadelphia, PECO is an electric and natural gas utility subsidiary of Exelon Corporation (NYSE: EXC). PECO serves 1.6 million electric and 485,000 natural gas customers in southeastern Pennsylvania and employs about 2,500 people in the region. PECO delivered 83.7 billion cubic feet of natural gas and 3945 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in 2008. Founded in 1881, PECO is one of the Greater Philadelphia Region's most active corporate citizens, providing leadership, volunteer and financial support to numerous arts and culture, education, environmental, economic development and community programs and organizations.