Vermont Utility Takes Unusual Approach to Reliability, Resilience

November 29, 2023--Written by John Egan for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Electric utilities across the U.S. are undergrounding power lines and stepping up tree trimming to improve electric reliability and resilience, following wildfires, hurricanes, flooding, ice storms and other natural disasters. But these programs can be expensive: Pacific Gas and Electric Company (San Francisco, California), a unit of PG&E Corporation (NYSE:PCG) (San Francisco), plans to spend billions of dollars to bury power lines in a portion of its service area.

Green Mountain Power (GMP) (Colchester, Vermont) is taking a different approach: It is giving customers the option to lease a Tesla Powerwall battery, or provide a rebate when customers purchase a battery energy-storage system (BESS) of their choice, as part of its effort to improve electric reliability and resilience.