(WAVY) — The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is predicting at least six hurricanes and at least three major hurricanes in the Atlantic Basin in 2025. It’s a prediction that has NOAA officials urging people to plan ahead.
The National Weather Service reported around 200,000 Virginians lost power in this past February’s winter storm. They add some people were without power as long as five days.
Virginia-based Dominion Energy, seeing the rise in demand, is sharing their $50 billion initiative to keep the power on.
“There’s a five-year capital plan that stands at about $50 billion, and about $27 billion of that is directly related to upgrades to the grid to help modernize it,” said Dominion spokeswoman Cherise Newsome. “We’re headed into hurricane season and extreme weather can cause power outages. We want to reduce and prevent the power outages as best as possible and that’s where grid modernization comes in.”
Hardening the grid looks different depending on where customers live. Some who live in areas where power lines are vulnerable to being brought down are seeing those lines move underground.
“Our goal in the strategic underground program is to bury about 4000 miles of power lines,” said Newsome. “So far, we’ve buried about 2500 miles of power lines. That represents about 13% of our power lines. What that does is reduce the elements that those power lines are exposed to. It’s been able to reduce outage times from about 11 hours to around 2 minutes.”
Additionally, for power lines in less vulnerable areas, Dominion Energy has upgraded the installation and size of power poles.
“We have a grid hardening program which uses taller poles rooted more deeply in the ground so that they can better withstand the elements of extreme weather conditions like thunderstorms and lightning,” Newsome said.
Dominion Energy has also improved the way they receive reports about power outages through new sensors that are applied to power lines. You can read more about that and other technology improvements by clicking here.
