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State agency
investigates
power spikes
SCC responds to service
complaints in county
By Roger Piantadosi
Rappahannock News Staff Writer
The State Corporation Commission has assigned an investigator to look into complaints of power spikes, outages and unreliable service for some Rappahannock County customers of Allegheny Power
The investigator, associate utilities engineer Neil Joshipura, said he is still collecting information on the handful of “reliability” complaints he has received from Allegheny customers in the county this fall.
He said it’s the responsibility of SCC’s energyregulation division, where he is assigned, to determine whether electric service is being provided reliably - and if not, to work with the power supplier to make the improvements needed to make it so.
He has heard from three Allegheny customers, he said, after one of those with a reliability complaint posted his name and office phone number (804-225-3201) on Rappnet, the local email list-serve.
But he also is looking into an Aug. 8 incident, primarily in Little Washington and nearby points west, when several Allegheny customers said a power surge knocked out utilities and caused, a spokesman for the group of 14 customers has said, “thousands of dollars" in damaged appliances, electronics and switches. Allegheny has denied any responsibility for the damages.
Joshipura said such investigations are common and usually involve matching information provided by power company customers with reports the company must provide to SCC about specific “circuits” during the times when service is alleged to have been unreliable.
He said the Washington complaints all stem from Allegheny’s Sperryville substation and could be related to the fact that several of the lines leading from the substation are “overbuilt” - meaning one power line is strung directly above another.
The SCC is specifically investigating the reliability
See POWER, Page A8
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