Rural Resilience Delivers Results
COLCHESTER, Vt. – If you were driving the back roads of southern Vermont this summer you may have seen electric crews, busy building a more resilient energy system.
We’ve storm hardened 100 miles of overhead lines and undergrounded another 100 miles of underground lines with this rural resilience initiative across Brattleboro, Brookline, Chester, Halifax, Jamaica, Londonderry, Newfane, Putney, Stamford, Stratton, Townshend, Wardsboro, Westminster, Whitingham, and Wilmington. And the work is already preventing outages in remote areas while driving down storm restoration costs for all GMP customers, no matter where you live.
Here’s some of the ways this work is already making a difference:
- Improved resilience for more than 17,400 customers across 11 rural circuits
- 100 miles of underground distribution completed
- 100 miles of overhead storm hardening completed
- 95% reduction in customer outage hours during multiple high-wind events on the East Jamaica circuit alone
- Approximately 80,000 customer outage hours avoided
- Approximately $700,000 in avoided restoration costs
Projects target the ‘worst performing’ circuits first – getting help to the areas that need it the most – and is our proactive response to drive down escalating storm repair costs which total more than $225M over the last ten years. Those are costs paid by all customers. Rather than just rebuilding the same old way after a storm, these customized resiliency projects rebuild targeted stretches of line with specialized resilience techniques to prevent outages from happening even when a tree falls onto a line. By preventing the outage, which improves comfort and safety for customers, the storm repair cost is also prevented, too.
State regulators recently authorized more of this work to continue in the hardest hit communities of the state. So, look out for crews at work building a stronger system that is more affordable for everyone.
About Green Mountain Power
Green Mountain Power serves more than 275,000 residential and business customers in Vermont with electricity that’s 100% carbon free on an annual basis. GMP is partnering with customers to provide solutions that deliver resiliency while cutting carbon and costs for all. GMP is the first utility in the world to get a B Corp certification, meeting rigorous social, environmental, accountability and transparency standards and using business as a force for good. GMP was named to Fast Company’s 2024 Most Innovative Companies in the World list, the sixth time earning that honor. In 2024, 2023 and 2021 the Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA) honored GMP as a nationwide leader in energy transformation. And, in 2022 GMP was named to TIME’s list of the 100 Most Influential Companies for its groundbreaking resiliency work to transform the grid for customers.