Electric News Releases

October 6, 2000

Dominion Virginia Power Highlights New Power Outage Prevention Technologies

FAIRFAX, Va. -- Dominion Virginia Power, a subsidiary of Dominion (NYSE: D), will invest more than $30 million this year in new, state-of-the-art technology designed to improve electric service reliability for its customers in the metropolitan Washington region.

"Service reliability is our top priority," said Craig Ivey, vice president-Electric Distribution Operations for the utility that serves nearly 600,000 homes and businesses in Northern Virginia. "We've mounted a strong offense to improve service reliability and maintain the integrity of our distribution system in the Virginia part of the metro region."

Ivey made the comments at a news briefing Friday at the company’s Northern Virginia headquarters in Fairfax. He highlighted four new technologies the electric utility is using to prevent power outages from occurring:

Infrared Thermography

Dominion Virginia Power uses an infrared camera to patrol power lines and detect problems unseen by the naked eye. When potential problems are detected, crews can replace equipment before its failure causes a power outage.

Wildlife Protection Devices

The company installs wildlife protection devices on outdoor electrical equipment whenever a serviceman makes repairs. The devices prevent animals, such as squirrels, snakes and raccoons, from coming in contact with electrical equipment. This environmentally sound measure is the most successful method of reducing a repeat outage caused by animals and helps to preserve the region’s wildlife population.

Automated Equipment

Dominion Virginia Power is changing the way power is restored following a major power outage. Automated switches in 82 locations in Northern Virginia have the capability to narrow the impact of an outage. Power is restored within 70 seconds to those customers not directly affected by the fallen tree that brought down a power line, for example. The automated equipment also allows the company to target its crews for the areas most affected by the outage.

Underground Cable Replacement

The company is investing $14 million this year to replace and update underground cable in its service area in the metropolitan Washington region. As part of the company’s long-term cable strategy, Dominion Virginia Power has replaced nearly 5 million feet of cable serving customers in Northern Virginia.

Dominion Virginia Power has a 20-member service reliability team in place that reviews historical data and implements these new technologies to improve the delivery of electricity. The team tracks the company’s progress in electric service reliability by calculating annually the average number of minutes customers are without electricity.

Excluding major storms, Dominion Virginia Power customers in the metropolitan Washington region were without electricity for 116 minutes in 1998 and 115 minutes in 1999.

"Dominion Virginia Power’s service reliability team is exclusively focused on keeping the lights on," Ivey said. "When an outage does occur, we redirect our efforts to restoring power as quickly and safely as possible."

Dominion, headquartered in Richmond, Va., is the nation’s largest fully integrated electric power and natural gas company. Dominion has a power generation portfolio of more than 19,000 megawatts, which is expected to grow to more than 28,000 megawatts by 2005. Dominion is also one of the largest independent oil and natural gas exploration and production companies in North America, with 2.8 trillion cubic feet of equivalent reserves. The company has 7,600 miles of inter-state natural gas pipeline with more than 650 billion cubic feet of annual natural gas throughput. Dominion also serves 3.8 million retail natural gas and electric customers. For more information on Dominion, visit the company's Internet site at www.dom.com.

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