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Appalachian Power said over 125,000 of its customers had been without power after Tuesday’s storm blast. Power had been restored to roughly 44% of affected customers as of 5 p.m. Wednesday, Appalachian Power said.

Powerlessness has been an all too frequent state of being in West Virginia.

Not including major event days, non-momentary electric interruptions experienced by the average customer lasted longer in West Virginia than any other state in the country in 2022 — over nine hours — per federal Energy Information Administration data.

West Virginia suffered the fifth-highest amount of time dealing with interruptions when including major event days exceeding a daily duration threshold and determined by reporting utilities — nearly 17 hours — according to EIA data.

Data: Decreased reliability for W.Va. power companies

The Mountain State’s power problem has been getting worse.

The state’s time dealing with interruptions when excluding major event days hit a 10-year high in 2022, and its 2022 total time spent including such days exceeded every prior year in the past decade except 2021.

Appalachian Power, Wheeling Power, Mon Power and Potomac Edison annual reliability reports for 2022 required by the Public Service Commission filed last year showed decreased reliability across metrics measuring the ability to avoid power interruptions.

Appalachian Power reported figures indicating a 15% increase from 2021 to 2022 in an index used to measure average interruption frequency with major event days in which interruption duration passes a certain threshold. The utility also reported increases in average interruption and duration frequency without major event days from 2021 to 2022.

Wheeling Power reported a 23% increase in its average system interruption frequency index and a 170% increase in an index used to measure average system interruption duration, both with major event days included. Sustained interruptions caused by equipment failures rose 17% with major event days excluded and reliability complaints increased 49% from 2021 to 2022 for Appalachian Power, according to a Gazette-Mail review of the company’s reliability reports.

Appalachian Power’s system average interruption duration index increased from 2017 to 2022 both including and excluding major event days, despite a vegetation management program surcharge and other reliability efforts.

“We are concerned about those numbers,� PSC Chairman Charlotte Lane said in an email through a spokesperson last year when asked about the 2022 reliability figures reported by Appalachian Power and Wheeling Power, as well as Mon Power and Potomac Edison.

In 2011, the state Public Service Commission imposed rules for electric reliability requirements in response to outages caused by a 2009 winter storm. Those rules required utilities to submit annual reliability reports listing outage duration and frequency data, number and causes of sustained power interruptions and planned improvements for utilities’ worst-performing circuits.

In 2012, a derecho wind storm left 1.6 million West Virginians without power, some for two weeks. Hurricane Sandy also caused significant outages. The following year, in an order that cited those two storms, the commission ordered all electric utilities to file time-cycle-based right-of-way vegetation control programs and status reports on planned improvements to storm response procedures.

West Virginia finished last in reliability and overall performance in a ranking of electric utility performance among all states released in 2022 by the Citizens Utility Board, an Illinois consumer advocate group.

Appalachian Power’s West Virginia coverage area ranked in the highest 3% of all 958 listed utilities nationwide in outage minutes per year and outage minutes per interruption, as well as the highest 9% in non-momentary electric interruption frequency in 2021, according to EIA data.

Appalachian Power reported more than 40 circuits damaged

Outages have persisted throughout Appalachian Power territory following Tuesday’s storm sweep.

Roughly a sixth of Appalachian Power’s 456,000 customers in West Virginia were without power as of Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. Clay and Nicholas counties were the hardest hit by percentage of customers with no power at 50%. Kanawha, Fayette and Lincoln counties had 38%, 25% and 31% of customers with no power, respectively.

The restoration estimate was 11 p.m. Wednesday for 90% of customers in Boone, Logan, Mingo and Raleigh counties as of Wednesday afternoon.

The restoration estimate was 11 p.m. Thursday — some 60 hours after the storm hit — for 90% of customers in Cabell, Clay, Fayette, Greenbrier, Jackson, Kanawha, Lincoln, Mason, Nicholas, Putnam, Roane and Wayne counties.

Appalachian Power said repairs were needed in 1,400 locations as of Wednesday at 5 p.m., a number the company added could rise as damage assessment continued. The company said distribution and transmission stations and over 40 circuits were damaged during the storm.

Crews found downed trees, broken and damaged poles as well as transformers and other equipment, the utility reported, adding that more than 3,600 storm response workers were part of the restoration effort. Nearly all the damage is tree-related, Appalachian Power said.

Appalachian Power has blamed heavy rainfall for outages

But Appalachian Power has suggested forces beyond the utility’s control are driving long outage durations.

Company spokesman Phil Moye said system interruption duration results in 2022 were impacted by weather, citing high rainfall from May to August and elevated storm activity, especially in June and July.

Moye has said Appalachian Power was implementing measures to lower the frequency and duration of outages, including increasing pole and equipment inspections and replacements.

Moye has cited company efforts to equip distribution circuits with equipment that automatically identifies and isolates outage locations, which he said reduces the number of customers affected by an outage.

Last year, Appalachian Power parent company American Electric Power was selected for a $27.8 million federal grant under the U.S. Department of Energy’s Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships program to enhance service and build a more responsive electric grid.

Moye said Wednesday the company was working through the final stages of the contract process with the federal government on the grant. The grant will provide nearly $5.6 million to offset half the cost to Appalachian Power customers of advanced grid management systems that will help improve service, Moye said.

Mon Power and Potomac Edison announced Monday they would invest $84.7 million in a tree-trimming program in their West Virginia service area aimed at helping prevent tree-related outages.

With climate change portending increasingly extreme weather patterns, energy experts have touted microgrids as a way to strengthen grid resilience and cut power generation-related pollution.

Department of Energy has defined microgrids as a group of interconnected loads and distributed energy resources within clearly defined electrical boundaries that acts a single, controllable entity, a microgrid can connect to and disconnect from the grid to allow it to operate both grid-connected and in “island mode.�

The Office of Energy tapped the Smart Electric Power Alliance, or SEPA, to prepare a report identifying opportunities to deploy microgrids throughout West Virginia. The SEPA is a nonprofit that provides research aimed at accelerating a transition to cleaner energy.

The SEPA report, published in 2022, defined community microgrids as multiple-customer grids serving several critical sites within a half-mile radius of each other. The report identified potential microgrids in:

• West Side and East End of ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä
• Westmoreland neighborhood of Huntington
• Bluefield
• Clendenin
• Elkins
• Fairmont
• Martinsburg
• Moorefield
• New Martinsville
• Rivesville
• Ronceverte
• Weston
• Winfield

A 64-page greenhouse gas reduction plan the Office of Energy submitted to the United States Environmental Protection Agency last month in pursuit of federal funding doesn’t mention microgrids, in stark contrast to some other states.

Office of Energy leaders did not respond to a request for comment on the status of microgrid development in West Virginia Wednesday.