Member News: A Message from Duke Energy Indiana: The Outage That Never Happened

A Message from Stan Pinegar, Duke Energy Indiana President: The Outage That
Never Happened

Sometimes success is measured by what doesn’t happen.


Since Duke Energy’s electric grid modernization program began in 2016, it has helped prevent approximately 63,000 customer power service interruptions, saving more than 7.8 million customer outage minutes. These avoided power outages translate into real savings and convenience for customers – assembly lines that keep moving, restaurants that keep serving and homes that stay lit and comfortable.


The outages were prevented by grid “self-healing” technologies that reduce power outages and help limit the number of customers affected. Today, when a tree or other object contacts a power line causing an outage, every customer served by that line — and other lines connected to it – loses power. Our energy grid today operates primarily as a one-way road, sending electricity from centralized power plants to customers. But
the grid needs to work more like a multi-lane freeway, sending energy and information in both directions with more on and off ramps. It needs to provide greater flexibility, better reliability and more product and service options for homes and businesses. With the new technology we are installing, we can automatically detect a problem, isolate it and reroute power, so fewer customers are left in the dark while repairs are
made. For an example of how it works, look at this demonstration of self-healing networks.


The technology is part of an overall electric grid modernization program that began in 2016 and runs through 2022. In addition to new technology, the program focuses on improved power reliability and safety from updating and replacing aging electric grid infrastructure, including substations, utility poles, power lines and transformers. To date, we have invested more than $600 million in these upgrades. These are strategic, data- driven investments to improve the reliability of our service and increase the number of outages that never happen.

Stan Pinegar
Duke Energy Indiana President