-
Smart self-healing technology in Florida helped save nearly 4 million hours of total outage time lost last year
-
More than 60% of clients served by self-healing capabilities in Florida, with a goal of serving about 80% in the next few years
STREET. PETERSBURG, Fla. – As Florida approaches another hurricane season, Duke Energy Florida is reminding customers of the benefits of its smart self-healing technology to help combat power outages during storms.
Just like a GPS can redirect traffic during an accident, self-healing technology can automatically detect power outages and quickly reroute power to restore service faster or prevent outage altogether.
Last year, this technology helped prevent approximately 513,000 extended customer outages in Florida, saving more than 3.8 million hours of total time lost to outages.
“We are working hard to improve reliability for our customers, harden the grid against severe weather and improve our response after a major storm,” said Melissa Seixas, Duke Energy Florida state president. “The back-to-back storms we experienced last hurricane season serve as strong reminders of the importance of this work hardening the grid and how these investments continue to benefit customers during power outages.”
Self-healing technology also provides a smart tool to assist crews in the field with power restoration after a major storm, helping to reduce the impacts of outages and freeing up resources to help restore power elsewhere .
Today, more than 60% of Duke Energy Florida customers have some form of self-healing or automated restoration technology, an increase of 45% compared to 2020.
Over the years, self-healing technology has provided tremendous benefit to Florida customers during times when Duke Energy experienced major system outages due to severe weather.
Within a few years, Duke Energy Florida expects to have at least 80% of its customers served by some form of self-healing technology. Click here to view Duke Energy Florida’s 2022 self-healing technology data by county.
duke energy florida
Duke Energy Florida, a subsidiary of Duke Energy, owns 10,500 megawatts of power capacity and supplies electricity to 1.9 million residential, commercial and industrial customers in a 13,000-square-mile service area in Florida.
Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK), a Fortune 150 company headquartered in Charlotte, NC, is one of the largest energy companies in the United States. Its electric services serve 8.2 million customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky, and together they have 50,000 megawatts of power capacity. Its natural gas unit serves 1.6 million customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Ohio and Kentucky. The company employs 27,600 people.
Duke Energy is executing an aggressive clean energy transition to achieve its goals of net zero methane emissions from its natural gas business by 2030 and net zero carbon emissions from electricity generation by 2050. The company has interim emissions targets for carbon of at least 50%. reduction in power generation by 2030, 50% for Scope 2 and certain Scope 3 upstream and downstream emissions by 2035, and 80% of power generation by 2040. In addition, the company is investing in major grid upgrades electricity and energy storage, and exploring zero-emission power generation technologies such as hydrogen and advanced nuclear power.
Duke Energy was named to Fortune’s 2023 “World’s Most Admired Companies” list and Forbes’ “World’s Best Employers” list. More information is available at duke-energy.com. The Duke Energy News Center contains press releases, fact sheets, photos and videos. Duke Energy lighting features stories about people, innovations, community issues and environmental issues. Follow Duke Energy on TwitterLinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook.
Press contact: Audrey Stasko
Media Line: 800.559.3853
Twitter: @DE_AudreyS
