Cleveland Public Power needs to upgrade the system it uses to deliver electricity to residents and businesses.
But the 120-year-old, city-owned utility’s main source of money for improving its poles, power lines, underground cables and substations is the ratepayers themselves.
That was the power grid dilemma that city officials laid out at a meeting in Ohio City on Tuesday night. Cleveland City Council Member Austin Davis called the meeting after summer heatwaves and storms knocked out power for thousands around Northeast Ohio, sparking resident frustration with both CPP and its investor-owned competitor, FirstEnergy.
Some of CPP’s equipment dates back almost to its first years in the early 20th century, Commissioner Ammon Danielson told the audience of about 60 people at Urban Community School.
“Part of what we are dealing with is a history of, unfortunately, deferred maintenance,” he said. “That is part of my goal and responsibility to change, and we are working on it. But the flip side of that as well is that it’s expensive and our customers have to pay for it.”
City Hall, which has been working on a strategic plan for CPP, has previously said it could cost more than $250 million to overhaul the public electricity provider.
The utility has raised its rates over the last two years — its first increase since the 1980s. Waiting so long to hike rates contributed to CPP’s current situation, he said. CPP has also looked to grants to help pay for improvements, but Danielson said there aren’t as many available as he would like.
Another way to bring more money into the system is to add big new customers. Davis said council members have talked about trying to connect Cleveland Hopkins International Airport to CPP. That would require the utility to extend beyond its current service area, which does not include much of the far West Side.
Businesses and neighborhoods feel the impact of power outages
Cleveland’s outages have emerged as a major issue for City Hall this summer. Residents at Tuesday’s meeting shared the financial and human toll that they blamed on power that came in and out.
One said she had to pay an electrician to install surge protectors in her breaker box. Another said half of the fish in her fish tank died from her home’s temperature fluctuations. A third, Sharon Sage, said she was starting to lose confidence in CPP.
Sage moved to Cleveland last year and said the number of power outages surprised her. She told Signal Cleveland she lost electricity for a few days in March, April and July. When the power goes out, she and her neighbors — who include FirstEnergy customers — buy each other ice to help keep food cool, she said.
She said customers shouldn’t take a “this is just what it is” attitude toward power outages.
“I fight against that because I don’t feel that’s the right mindset,” she said in a phone interview Wednesday.
Sage said she would be open to paying higher rates for power system upgrades, but that not all customers could absorb the expense. CPP should be transparent about costs if it does seek a rate hike, and it should pursue other options, too, she said.
“I would just want to make sure that raising our power bills is not the full solution, but a part of the solution,” Sage said.
Danielson said overheating underground cables were at the heart of the CPP outages in the first week of July. He also acknowledged that CPP has struggled to communicate with its customers. The utility’s online outage map displays widespread outages but not smaller ones. CPP’s customer callback feature had broken, too, but was now fixed, he said.
The nonprofit Ohio City Inc. has urged Mayor Justin Bibb to offer emergency relief to businesses that lost customers and saw food spoil over the July 4 weekend. City Hall said it would meet with businesses and the nonprofit about the power problems.
Cleveland Public Power vs. the competition
If CPP has a face-saving card to play with unhappy customers, it is this: Cleveland Public Power is not FirstEnergy, the investor-owned utility that admitted to its central role in the multimillion-dollar House Bill 6 scandal and this year inked a $275 million settlement with the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio.
Once known colloquially as Muny Light, CPP has long been in competition with Cleveland Electric Illuminating Co., now a FirstEnergy subsidiary.
Danielson said pointing to FirstEnergy’s own power outages doesn’t help CPP’s customers. But he did have a chance to draw a contrast when asked if it was feasible to merge with another electric company.
“We’re competing with a utility that is not our good friend,” Danielson said. “They are much larger than us. And certainly, there is no interest in merging. I think we have kind of polar goals in life in terms of why we are operating our utilities.”
That won him a smattering of applause in Ohio City.
Have questions about power outages? Fill out the form below.
