Electric News Releases

May 12, 2000

North Carolina Power Improves Electric Service to Outer Banks

KITTY HAWK, N.C. -- Residents and tourists on the Outer Banks should experience fewer power outages this summer thanks to an ongoing $13 million campaign by North Carolina Power to improve electrical service to the isolated vacation hotspot.

At the heart of the service improvements is a three-year, $10-million upgrade of the primary transmission line that serves the Outer Banks. In addition, the company, a subsidiary of Dominion (NYSE: D), will spend nearly $3 million this year to upgrade or replace distribution equipment that delivers electricity to homes and businesses.

"Knowing how exposed the Outer Banks are to Mother Nature, we have always put in a lot of effort to maintain our Outer Banks distribution system," said Edgar M. Roach Jr., North Carolina Power chief executive officer. "In fact, it has been designed to withstand higher winds than any other part of our system."

The Outer Banks, which has a permanent population of 31,500, hosts more than 7 million vacationers a year. "Nor'easters," thunderstorms, tropical storms and hurricanes frequently hit the barrier island community that juts into the Atlantic Ocean.

"The work we are doing now goes beyond maintenance to correct damage caused by salt, wind and rain, and is intended to improve the reliability of our system," Roach said.

To improve reliability, the company is doubling the voltage of the main transmission line that serves the narrow strand. For years, two 115-kilovolt transmission lines that ran from Shawboro to Kitty Hawk, a distance of 39 miles, served the Outer Banks. Work on converting one of those lines to 230 kV was completed May 11. Starting this fall, the company will begin converting the other line to 230 kV. The job should be completed by next spring.

"We wanted to insure that we had two lines serving the Outer Banks during the tourist season," said Jim Earwood, senior vice president-Bulk Power Delivery. "By getting this first 230-kV line done prior to the start of the season this year, we have increased the capacity and the reliability of the entire system serving the Outer Banks."

In addition to installing nine miles of new transmission line, the job called for installing new silicon polymer insulators that are designed to resist salt, and rebuilding a company substation at Kitty Hawk.

The work at Kitty Hawk substation included installing a new 230-kV transformer. Work already is underway to relocate a second 230-kV transformer to the site to serve as a backup unit. When the second transmission line is converted to 230 kV, a third transformer will be placed at the substation.

Other improvements to the system included: Converting a substation at Aydlett to 230 kV and adding a second transformer. Now if one transformer fails, the other can pick up the load without causing any outages on the Outer Banks. Improving the system's ability to withstand lightning strikes through the use of new conductors and better grounding systems

"All these improvements to the transmission system serving the Outer Banks are designed to increase reliability and to meet growth for years to come," Earwood said.

Transmission improvements are only part of North Carolina Power's efforts to improve service on the Outer Banks. Once power leaves a substation it becomes part of the company's distribution system, which are the poles, lines and other equipment that deliver electricity to customers.

"We have identified those areas where outages have been the most frequent," Earwood said. "We are taking steps to correct them by installing the latest equipment and redesigning the systems."

One strategy being tried for the first time on the Outer Banks calls for using "automated loop schemes." In a loop scheme, electricity can be delivered to the same point from different sources. The loop systems utilize state-of-the-art technology that automatically senses a power outage and instantly closes and opens the proper switches.

For example, if a line serving 1,000 homes goes out, power can be rerouted from another automatically. Depending on where the problem is, most customers on that line would experience no more than a blink in their lights.

In many instances, problems have occurred because systems designed to handle a certain number of homes are close to reaching their capacity.

"While we have never had a line fail in the Outer Banks because it was overloaded, we can improve reliability by reducing the load on some of our systems," Earwood said. For example, if a transformer is currently serving 2,000 homes, a second transformer can be added to reduce the load by 600 or 700 homes, he said.

"This divide-and-conquer strategy has two advantages. First, because the load on the system has been reduced, it is less likely to fail. Second, if it should fail not as many customers will be affected," Earwood said.

Dominion is the nation's largest fully integrated natural gas and electric power company, with 4 million retail customers in five states. For more information, visit the company's Internet site at www.dom.com. For more information on North Carolina Power, visit the company's website at www.ncpower.com.

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