Cleveland is preparing a strategic plan for the 120-year-old, city-owned electric utility once known as Muny Light.
Cleveland Public Power, as it is now branded, has been in need of an update. A leaked consultant’s report from 2020 described the CPP system as “unacceptable, unsafe and an outlier compared to other similarly sized utilities.”
Now it appears that a refresh is in store for CPP, although there aren’t many details available yet.
Mayor Justin Bibb hinted at his plans after a resident asked him about power outages at a recent meeting in the Central neighborhood. The transformation plan will lay out a path for modernizing the utility, he said.
“This is going to take some time to do, but it’s high on my list,” Bibb said.
It’s also a high priority for Brian Kazy, the chair of Cleveland City Council’s Utilities Committee, the mayor said. Kazy told Weekly Chatter that the plan will build on a two-year-old assessment of CPP’s infrastructure.
“That’s what everybody wants done,” he said. “You’re talking transformers, you’re talking substations, you talking facilities themselves. But then you’re also talking about pole replacements.”
By Kazy’s back-of-the-envelope estimate, fixing everything that needs to be fixed at CPP could cost from $70 million to $100 million. The mayor’s office said it could be a few weeks before the plan’s details are ready to be shared.
CPP is available in much of the city, but its service area stops short of most of the West Park neighborhood. The publicly owned utility has long competed for customers with the private company now known as Akron-based FirstEnergy.
