April 30 , 2007

OUTAGE REPORT: Seven Minutes in Key Largo

Officials at Florida Keys Electric Cooperative report that during the night on April 29, a two-bolt connector gave way on a power structure by the NAPA Auto Parts store at mile marker 99.5. That failed connector allowed a jumper line to drop and contact the bottom phase of the three-phase power system.

The initial contact caused a breaker to operate on FKEC's system at 10:18 p.m., but no outages were reported as a result of the operation. Breakers open and then re-close on the power system routinely to clear faults, such as tree limbs brushing the lines, often with no reported outages.

At approximately 4 a.m., FKEC received a call from a local business. The call was investigated and the failed connector found by FKEC crews.

FKEC took the local distribution system out of service briefly from 8:21 a.m. until 8:28 a.m. to replace the damaged equipment, causing a seven-minute localized power outage.

FKEC's system was 99.98% reliable in 2006, with only 1.88 hours of power outages per FKEC member for the entire year.

The company's routine maintenance schedule includes annual aerial visual inspections by helicopter, annual inspections with infrared cameras, and scheduled equipment upgrades and replacements based on equipment life cycles.

FKEC is a not-for-profit cooperative utility serving the Upper and Middle Keys since 1940.

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