MoCo Council Receives Pepco Reliability Update

Pepco is apologizing to its customers for widespread power outages and pledges to make improvements in a full-page newspaper advertisement Monday. Meanwhile, in Maryland, top representatives from the utility presented a reliability update to members of the Montgomery County Council Monday.

The hearing was called by Council Member Roger Berliner -- a vocal critic of the utility. He has demanded that Pepco create a restitution fund for customers who remained without power long after recent storms ended.

Berliner says the utility owes customers reliable service.

"...Instead we have a public utility that allowed it system to degrade over many years to the point where the service, on sunny days, is the worst in the state, worst in the region, and has been in the lowest quartile in the nation for the past five years," he says.

Pepco's vice president for power delivery, Dave Velazquez, outlined a six-point plan to improve reliability within five years.

"We're not where we want to be meeting customer expectations, but we're gonna get there and that's our commitment," he says.

Pepco says it's committing $574 million to upgrade infrastructure and protect power lines from trees.