PSC 113.0512(2)(b)(b) Request for inspection. Any person, organization or agency may request the utility to make an inspection for potential power line natural hazards and the commission on its own motion, may order the utility to inspect its transmission and distribution lines and rights-of-way for potential power line natural hazards. The utility shall make such inspection upon a showing that potential power line natural hazards may exist.

PSC 113.0512(3)(3) Response to identification of potential power line natural hazards. Upon identifying a potential power line natural hazard, the utility shall take action to eliminate the hazard to the power line. The utility shall make a reasonable effort to notify the owner or other individual with authority, to trim or remove the tree of the potential danger and method by which the danger may be minimized or removed. Nothing in this section shall preclude the utility’s obligation to immediately remove the hazard, as required by ch. PSC 114.

PSC 113.0512 NoteNote: Section 26.14 (9) (b), Stats., subjects a person to liability for the cost of suppressing a forest fire if the forest fire is intentionally or negligently set and allowed to escape. A utility not inspecting its lines or operations to identify, trim or remove hazardous trees consistent with these rules may be found negligent and, therefore, responsible for payment of forest fire suppression costs resulting from a forest fire caused by a tree or branch breaking or damaging a line or equipment. A utility complying with these rules, is not expected to be responsible for costs associated with forest fire suppression under s. 26.14 (9) (b), Stats. If a utility complying with this section is not authorized to trim or remove a tree it identifies as hazardous, consistent with the training required by it; a landowner notified of the potential danger or damage that may be caused to the transmission or distribution line or operation, might be found later to have been negligent and responsible for the costs of setting and allowing a forest fire to escape; however, the agency seeking reimbursement for the costs has the burden of proving that the landowner is responsible. The goal of this effort is to reduce the likelihood of outages and forest fires, thereby reducing the likelihood that anyone is responsible for forest fire suppression costs.

PSC 113.0601(1)(1) The purpose of ss. PSC 113.0601 to 113.0605 is to establish standards and reporting requirements to provide consumers, the commission and electric utilities with a uniform method to monitor the reliability of electric service delivered in an electric utility’s operating area. These rules adopt definitions and requirements for maintenance of interruption data, retention of records and report filing, in addition to those in the other sections of subch. IV.

PSC 113.0601(2)(2) In general, utilities are expected to provide sufficient resources to assure reasonably adequate and reliable service to all of their customers under normal operating conditions. These standards establish the reliability of service on an annual basis under all operating conditions, including during major storms, major catastrophic events and police actions. A utility may supply supplemental reliability statistics excluding the aforementioned situations (in addition to the statistics with those events included) with a written justification for exclusion.

PSC 113.0601(3)(3) The commission will use this information to measure and monitor overall reliability performance of individual utilities. The commission may review data by utility, trends of measures over time and comparison of measures between and among utilities of similar characteristics. Where necessary, the information may be used by the commission to take enforcement actions through other proceedings to maintain or improve reliability performance and to assure customers are receiving reasonably adequate service.

PSC 113.0602(5)(5) “Customer interruption” means the loss of service due to a forced outage for more than five minutes, for one or more customers, which is the result of one or more component failures. For example, a downed house service is one interruption and a disconnected hot leg of a triplex house service, known as a “half-light” condition, is one customer interruption. However, failure of a transformer serving four customers is four customer interruptions.

PSC 113.0602(6)(6) “Customer interruptions caused by power restoration process” means when customers lose power as a result of the process of restoring power (such as from switching operations and fault isolation). The duration of these outages is included in the customer-minutes of interruption. However, only the customers affected by the power restoration outages that were not affected by the original outage are added to the number of customer interruptions.