Duke Energy Florida's innovative technology reduces outages and saves customers millions of minutes of interruptions

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• In 2021, smart, self-healing technology in Florida helped avoid nearly 250,000 extended customer power outages, saving almost 17 million minutes of customer interruptions.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., July 1, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — As Florida heads into another month of hurricane season and afternoon thunderstorms become more common, Duke Energy Florida’s smart, self-healing technology continues to benefit customers during power outages.

Much like a GPS can reroute traffic during an accident, self-healing technology can automatically detect power outages and quickly reroute power to restore service faster or avoid the outage altogether.

Last year, this technology helped avoid nearly 250,000 extended customer power outages in Florida, saving almost 17 million minutes of total lost outage time.

“We are working hard to deliver electricity that is reliable, increasingly clean and more secure,” said Duke Energy Florida state president Melissa Seixas. “We know that storms are increasing in frequency and intensity, so it’s important that we take steps today to protect the grid from the impacts of severe weather and increase reliability for all our customers.”

Currently, 53% of Duke Energy Florida customers are served by some form of self-healing or automated restoration technology, a 14% increase as compared to 2020.

Over the years, self-healing technology has provided tremendous benefit to Florida customers during times when Duke Energy experienced major outages on its system due to severe weather.

• Tropical Storm Collin – June 2016. More than 11,000 extended customer power outages avoided, saving over 2 million minutes of customer interruptions.
• Hurricane Hermine – September 2016. More than 27,000 extended customer power outages avoided, saving over 3 million minutes of customer interruptions.
• Hurricane Matthew – October 2016. More than 1,000 extended customer power outages avoided, saving over 159,000 minutes of customer interruptions.
• Hurricane Irma – September 2017. More than 12,000 extended customer power outages avoided, saving over 5 million minutes of customer interruptions.
• Hurricane Michael – October 2018. More than 10,000 extended customer power outages avoided, saving over 1.8 million minutes of customer interruptions.
• Hurricane Eta – November 2020. More than 13,000 extended customer power outages avoided, saving over 1.7 million minutes of customer interruptions.
• Tropical Storm Fred – August 2021. More than 5,000 extended customer power outages avoided, saving over 1.2 million minutes of customer interruptions.

In less than 10 years, Duke Energy Florida expects to have 80% of its customers served by some form of self-healing technology. Click here

Additionally, Duke Energy has reduced the average amount of time a customer experiences an outage by approximately 20% over the last five years, according to the System Average Interruption Duration Index (SAIDI), which indicates the amount of time the average customer experiences a sustained outage.

Over the next 10 years, Duke Energy Florida will continue to make strategic investments in strengthening its infrastructure, reducing outage times associated with extreme weather events, reducing restoration costs and improving overall service reliability.

Self-healing technology video.

Self-healing grid system animation video.

Duke Energy Florida

Duke Energy Florida, a subsidiary of Duke Energy, owns 10,300 megawatts of energy capacity, supplying electricity to 1.9 million residential, commercial and industrial customers across a 13,000-square-mile service area in Florida.

Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK), a Fortune 150 company headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., is one of America’s largest energy holding companies. Its electric utilities serve 8.2 million customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky, and collectively own 50,000 megawatts of energy capacity. Its natural gas unit serves 1.6 million customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Ohio and Kentucky. The company employs 28,000 people.

Duke Energy is executing an aggressive clean energy transition to achieve its goals of net-zero methane emissions from its natural gas business and at least a 50% carbon reduction from electric generation by 2030 and net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. The 2050 net-zero goals also include Scope 2 and certain Scope 3 emissions. In addition, the company is investing in major electric grid enhancements and energy storage, and exploring zero-emission power generation technologies such as hydrogen and advanced nuclear.

Duke Energy was named to Fortune’s 2022 “World’s Most Admired Companies” list and Forbes’ “America’s Best Employers” list. More information is available at duke-energy.com. The Duke Energy News Center contains news releases, fact sheets, photos and videos. Duke Energy’s illumination features stories about people, innovations, community topics and environmental issues. Follow Duke Energy on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook.

Media contact: Audrey Stasko                                                    
Cell: 315.877.3031
Media line: 800.559.3853

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SOURCE Duke Energy

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