At AEP Ohio, we recognize that reliable electricity is essential to your daily life. Our crews have been working diligently to inspect the power grid across our service territory to make upgrades and repairs — aiming to deliver power without interruptions.
Focused on Improvement
This year, AEP Ohio launched an initiative to reduce the frequency and duration of power outages. Teams identified circuits where animals and aging infrastructure were causing recurring outages and prioritized inspections, upgrades and repairs in those areas.
“Our dedicated teams are in the field every day inspecting and repairing these circuits, ensuring we address issues before they lead to future outages,” said Ben Yates, distribution work scheduling manager at AEP Ohio. “Our goal is to complete everything by early summer 2025 so customers can benefit as we see more severe weather during the summer.”
Progress Update
So far, crews have successfully completed all inspections, assessing more than:
- 2,500 miles of power lines
- 24,500 poles
- 300,000 pieces of equipment
Now, engineering teams are designing and planning repairs for about 45,000 pieces of equipment. Lineworkers have already begun and will continue making upgrades and repairs to equipment, including:
- 200 poles
- 1,600 crossarms
- 7,000 pieces of protection cutout equipment
- Installing 17,000 animal protection devices
Forestry crews have also started trimming and removing trees along 2,500 miles of power lines to reduce the risk of tree-related power outages.
“This is one of many ways we’re working to provide customers with safe and reliable power,” Yates said. “With the success we’ve seen so far, we’re excited to build upon these efforts in other areas.”
We appreciate your continued support and patience as we work toward a future with power without interruptions.
Will all this service and repair increase my bill
You charge me crazy high fees, then claim to be preventing outages, and we just had an outage, plus I have been trying to get you to take down a dead tree since September, 3 men have looked at it, said it is approved to be done, yet it is not done. Are you just waiting for it to fall on its own? Because it will pretty soon with all the storms we have been getting. If it falls on your lines, it will also hit the home behind us that is right next to that line, then someone could be killed. All it will take is a strong storm with wind from the south.
Thank you.
Was glad to see the crews On Brand Rd, Dublin, Wed inspecting our poles and circuits to maintain our service. They cut back the trees a month ago. Was happy my pole was replaced last year.
When do you plan to clean up the area along the Hilliard rail trail? The debris left from the removal of all the vegetation along my property and the rail trail has been sitting there for over 6 weeks. It is incredibly frustrating to have branches and old metal fences left in our yard after the “trimming” that took place. The entire rail trail in Hilliard looks like a wasteland and has no shade. Not to mention we lost all the privacy from the trail along the southern border of our property. Feels very disrespectful and could have been handled in a much better way with better communication. I have been told they are going to landscape this portion of the trail and our property but I haven’t seen anyone since they destroyed the bushes. There was significsnt damsge to our lawn and property due to this “protection of the power grid”.
If I call because I have a problem with my power the first question I get asked is if I can look out my windows to see if my neighbors have power. Generally that answer is yes as I feel my visible neighbors are probably served by Deshler Power or Hancock Wood. OH, you put in new meters but that wasn’t much of a help to me. It almost seems that any time someone trips over an extension cord in McComb I loose power.
I am sure that if you were me you would also find this a bit upsetting.
I would be excited for this if every time your crews came they didn’t absolutely butcher the trees and make the neighborhood look awful. They are in such a rush to get it done they just hack and saw away at everything it seems. Happy to hear about the animal protection installation though.
It could be worse! Thanks for all your hard work, our power was restored 2 days earlier than first expected, you’re efforts didn’t go unnoticed.
Thanks again!
Just curious: Is this work going to cause outages while it is being done? And if so, will we receive any advance notice?
Also, I agree with Daniel about the butchering of the trees. Isn’t there some way this work can be done without mutilating them?
Hopefully you can look at the poles on Price Rd. North Newark, Oh. from CTEC to KIng Rd. All of the poles in this area were blew over by shear abut 25 years ago, most have no guys. Some are leaning badly especially at the road crossings. A couple are leaning I would guess about 30 degrees. Just have someone drive It out you’ll see what I’m talking about and feeds a pretty large area.