What FPL Is Doing About Power Disturbances Down the Line

Minimizing power problems | Keeping your employees safe during a power outage | How FPL restores power after a storm

FPL realizes how disruptive power disturbances can be to your business. That's why we're constantly looking for ways to

• improve the quality of electricity going into your business
• prevent power outages and
• rapidly restore electricity when outages do occur.

Since 1997, FPL has spent more than $600 million to upgrade its system to improve the quality and reliability of electric service. This investment has resulted in the average length of each power outage being cut in half.

Minimizing power problems

Florida's high incidence of windstorms and lightning makes it impossible to completely eliminate outages and power disturbance problems. But FPL is aggressively pursuing new technologies and taking other steps to reduce the time it takes to restore your power, and to minimize those annoying "flickers" and "blips". These measures include

• developing early alert systems for power lines that are having problems
• replacing aging power lines and cables
• improving the way we maintain and inspect transformers
• keeping power lines clear by trimming surrounding trees more often*
• performing more diagnostic tests to locate potential problems with lines and equipment
• installing equipment that is more resistant to lightning and vegetation damage, and
• adding and upgrading lightning protection.

*Note: FPL no longer responds to individual customer requests for tree trimming around power lines. FPL efforts are directed toward mass clearing of trees from lines.

Keeping your employees safe during a power outage

When a power outage occurs, you and your employees' safety is our main concern. Here are some basic tips that will keep your employees safe while the power is out:

• Call 1-800-4OUTAGE (1-800-468-8243) immediately to report downed power lines and outages, and to receive updates on our efforts to restore service.
• You also can report the problem online at Report Trouble.
• Assume all cables and wires are energized and stay away.
• Keep away from flooded and debris-laden areas because they may be hiding downed lines.
• Run your portable generator outside your building and connect equipment directly to it.

For more information, visit Working with Power Safety Six.

How FPL restores power after a storm

FPL crews are specially trained technicians whose job it is to get your power back on quickly. After a storm, these crews restore electricity to your community so that the most critical services are restored first, in this order:

• Damaged FPL power plants and power lines from the plants, since these must be fixed before service can be restored anywhere.
• Organizations that provide essential services to the community, such as
• hospitals
• police
• fire stations
• TV and
• radio stations.
• Most densely populated areas.
• Less densely populated and outlying areas.

For more information, visit our Storm Center.