NAPLES, Fla. — Struggling to provide people with power, is a problem experienced in places like Naples, during afternoon storms, and especially during a hurricane.
On Thursday, crews from Florida Power & Light (FPL) were off 19th Avenue SW in Naples where they said removing overhead power lines, and placing them underground will make communities more resilient during storms.
Alonso Weiner, who lives off 19th Avenue said he’s familiar with power issues.
“Not just during the hurricane where we lost power a couple of days but before and after there have been issues,” said Weiner.
Issues Weiner said are caused by everything from daily storms to hurricane-force winds from Ian.
It's a realization for Collier County commissioner William McDaniel Jr. who said Ian pointed out the areas that need work around the county.
“Hurricanes, unfortunately, exemplify weaknesses in your infrastructure, we have weaknesses in our infrastructure and this is one,” said McDaniel Jr.
Troy Todd, a Senior Project Manager for FPL said the company chooses locations based on previous data of areas that have struggled with power in the past.
“Criteria that’s approved through the Florida Public Service Commission requires us to look at data from outages from past hurricanes outages from vegetation and tree issues as well as some additional reliability data and thats how we choose neighborhoods we are going in,” said Todd.
On Thursday, Todd said underground lines have faired well in the past.
“During Hurricane Irma, they performed 85% better than overhead power lines and on average they performed about 50% better on day-to-day operations,” said Todd.
On Thursday, Todd said the project on 19th Avenue in Naples where Alonso Weiner lives was close to being complete.
“We make money working from home so not having power is actually a liability,” said Weiner.
So far FPL said they have converted around 17 miles of power lines underground, with another seven miles from projects like this one, planned for this year.
“Just keeping the power on is the most important part of the project, ya know in my opinion,” said Weiner.
Conlan Kennedy, a representative for FPL said the costs for these projects are recovered from all customers through the Storm Protection Plan monthly charge.
Kennedy adds the charge is approved by the Public Service Commission.
For a typical residential 1,000-kWh customer, Kennedy said the monthly charge will be less than $4 in 2023.
