ComEd tells Palatine council its reliability has improved; cites fewer outages and faster restoration

ComEd representatives told the village committee that recent investments have produced measurable reliability gains for Palatine customers.

"We're at 0.77," said Scott Kish, ComEd reliability manager, describing the system‑average interruption frequency index for the area, and added that outage restoration averages about "82 minutes," which he characterized as the best performance in 10 years. Kish said automation devices—"smart switches" or reclosers—are being installed on distribution circuits to limit the number of customers affected when a pole is struck or an underground cable is damaged. He said the company completed three circuits last year and six so far this year and is using both an "injection" technique and full cable replacement with directional boring to restore or replace aging underground cable.

Cynthia Thomas, ComEd external affairs manager, framed the work as ongoing. "We are very excited about it and we have more to do," she said before turning the floor over to Kish for technical details. Kish said the automation can reduce an interruption event affecting 2,000–3,000 customers down to 400–500 customers in some cases.

Kish also outlined maintenance programs: corrective work to replace broken cross arms and cracked insulators, a four‑year inspection cycle for circuits and tree trimming (8–10 feet of clearance), and selective overhead‑to‑underground conversions where outage histories show repeated failures. He said ComEd has "over 400 projects currently in the plan" and estimated roughly 5% of planned projects would require new pole installation. The company described a pole inspection process that excavates at the ground line to assess decay and then applies preservative wraps to extend service life.

During committee questions, officials advised residents to report outages by phone, text or the company website so ComEd can aggregate reported outages and dispatch crews or troublemen appropriately. ComEd representatives also said wildlife remains one of the leading causes of interruptions and that the company installs wildlife protection on equipment that experiences repeated animal‑related faults.