PPL Electric Utilities, Southern Company, Louisville Gas and Electric Company, Kentucky Utilities, and the Tennessee Valley Authority on Tuesday announced a new initiative designed to enhance the reliability of the power grid by providing additional sources for obtaining critical equipment following disaster events.
The initiative, called the Regional Equipment Sharing for Transmission Outage Restoration (RESTORE), creates a voluntary program where the companies involved will identify spare transformers and other transmission equipment to sell to other companies should they experience a widespread disaster within their service areas.
The companies intend that the RESTORE program be expanded to include other regional utilities, playing a complementary role to other industry recovery programs.
“At PPL, we continue to pursue solutions to maintain the safety and security of the power grid, and to address any issues related to the reliability of our nation’s power supply,” Stephanie Raymond, vice president of PPL Electric Utilities, said. “Joining a collaborative initiative like RESTORE increases our ability to resolve grid reliability issues to meet the needs of our customers in times of an emergency.”
LG&E and KU Vice President of Transmission Tom Jessee said, “Just as our electric distribution-focused mutual assistance partnerships have played a critical role in helping to mitigate the impact of natural disasters or other types of emergencies on the systems of partnership participants and their customers, we believe the RESTORE initiative will prove just as beneficial to the electric transmission system and power grid as a whole.”