FirstEnergy Corporation FE announced the current status of annual electric transmission and distribution line maintenance work. The company will invest $324.3 million this year in the service areas of its 10 subsidiaries to trim trees, and remove dead trees and branches for reducing the possibility of tree-related outages.
Every year, the company employs tree contractors who work round the year to ensure proper vegetation management in more than 35,600 miles of electric lines of FirstEnergy. Proper management increases the reliability of the company’s services. By mid-June, the contractors have already maintained more than 13,000 miles of lines and the remaining work will be completed in the second half of the year.
Maintenance is Essential
The novel coronavirus outbreak and stay-at-home orders no doubt had a positive impact on the residential load of FirstEnergy. As it is, nearly 65% of distribution revenues of the company come from residential customers. Hence, regular maintenance work is pretty essential to ensure uninterrupted power supply to nearly 6 million customers that it serves in different states.
Utilities resort to round-the-clock maintenance of infrastructure to delay the possibility of outages. New and advanced technologies are being used to maintain the power lines. NextEra Energy’s NEE unit Florida Power & Light uses drone for inspection of the power lines that help in maintenance work.
For maintenance of wind turbines and thermographic inspections of utility-scale solar farms, drones play a very crucial role in cutting down the time and cost of inspection, which, in a way, allows the utilities to keep the rates low for customers.
Utilities Play a Crucial Role
Utilities across the United States silently played a very crucial role in supplying electricity, natural gas and water to millions of customers across the country, when the novel coronavirus was spreading at an alarming rate. With millions of Americans staying back at homes, the utilities ensured 24×7 supply of essentials even if the customers delayed or failed to pay their service dues.
Utilities like American Water Works AWK and Dominion Energy D, among others, have already decided to continue providing water, wastewater and electric services to assist consumers who are in financial distress.
Zacks Rank & Price Performance
The stock currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
In the past three months, shares of the company have returned 11.9% compared with the industry’s 14.3% rally.
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