Delivering Reliable Power To Lakewood was the theme of the town hall meeting conducted by representatives of FirstEnergy on August 12 at Lakewood Civic Auditorium. Yet while the meeting presented the utility’s plan to reduce the number of interruptions to Lakewood’s energy supply, the energy in the room among Lakewood residents was at a consistently high level.
“You understand you’re in a very hostile room today,” a frustrated FirstEnergy customer said to Sally Thomas, FirstEnergy’s vice president of distribution engineering and planning. “I kind of get that tone,” she responded.
In recent years, FirstEnergy customers in Lakewood and western neighborhoods in Cleveland have experienced several power outages. In some cases, such as one in late June, the interruptions have been measured in days. In online forums, at coffee shop counters and in grocery store aisles, consumer frustration has increased with the summer temperatures.
As a response, Thomas presented a slide deck that laid out $12.5 million in investments that FirstEnergy believes will, in her words, “strengthen overall reliability, resiliency and redundancy into the grid now as well as into the future.”
The plan included transformer repairs and upgrades ($5 thousand), replacement of breakers ($ 1.6 million), installation of smart meters ($6.9 million) and eventually the replacement of transformers ($4 million), with the project concluding in 2028. Thomas also cited current efforts including equipment inspections using drones, monitoring voltage voltage levels, tree trimming and communication with local officials.
When the presentation was concluded and the floor opened for comments, it was clear that the residents who spoke were skeptical of FirstEnergy’s commitment to improve service.
“Why has it taken this forum for you to start being proactive on a system that should have been upgraded continuously for years,” a frustrated resident said, voicing a complaint expressed by many who spoke. “Forgive me because I’m still kind of bitter about the whole HB6 thing.” After applause and shouts of affirmation arose, he added, “I don’t really have a question, per se, but I just wanted to say we don’t trust you.”
Reliability data filed with the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio by Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company, the FirstEnergy unit serving Lakewood, shows that the utility’s average minutes per customer interruption has increased in four of the past five years and has been above the standard for each of those years.
The effect of these interruptions was related by several FirstEnergy customers. One who identified herself as a civil engineer said, “I have a freezer full of breast milk to feed my child. I can’t replace it. It’s not possible.” Another, speaking from his wheelchair, described being stuck in an elevator for two and a half hours during an outage.
Tom Bullock, a Lakewood councilman at-large who is also executive director of the Citizens Utility Board of Ohio, acknowledged FirstEnergy’s plan, saying, “It takes courtesy and courage to be here, so I’m thankful for that. But it’s not the activity that we want. It’s the effecting. So what commitments can you make to reduce the number of outages and to reduce the duration of outages [for] the people who rely on their power for health, for safety, for food? By the way if you lose $230 in food and your food assistance for the month is $500, that’s a pretty catastrophic loss.”
The meeting lasted nearly 90 minutes. After Thomas took the final question from the floor and residents began filing out, a man asked from his seat, “Have you guys at all tonight said since we started, We’re sorry? I’ve heard we’re gonna do this, we’re gonna do that, we’re gonna do this. You should have said to us, first of all, we are sorry.”
“Again, thank you, sir, for that comment,” Thomas said in response. “Again, what you have experienced is unacceptable and we’re here to fix it.”
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