Outage map in the works for E.L.K. Energy customers, ENWIN says

Areas that are serviced by E.L.K. Energy are shaded green and outlined in red. (Source: Town of Essex)

ENWIN says its exploring the possibility of introducing an outage map for E.L.K. Energy customers.

Essex Council was provided an update Tuesday night on ENWIN’s long and short-term goals for the utility provider it acquired from the town last fall.

ENWIN president and CEO Garry Rossi said they’re attempting to improve communications.

“The most important thing during an outage is knowing that we’re aware of it, and if they know that we’re aware of it, I can guarantee you we’re on top of it and we’re going to get that done,” he said.

“Stay tuned. We’re hoping to provide that update hopefully in the next coming months.”

Rossi presented the short-term one to three year plan and said maintaining the E.L.K. operations presence within the town was critical for success for customer stability.

“We have a 24/7 control room, one of the only ones in southwestern Ontario, south of London, which we’re able to monitor and operate and make sure that the service is being maintained throughout our territory,” he said.

“That wouldn’t go without evidence based capital planning. We investigate, we look at, we calculate where the critical infrastructure needs to be implemented and maintained.”

Rossi said the five to 10-year long-term plan would focus on strengthening grid reliability through strategic automation.

“We talk a lot about how we’re automated as a utility. Building that automation out into this area first requires a lot of infrastructure, like core infrastructure, poles, wires, transformers, the real basics that we really need to make sure are sound before we can build on automation,” he said.

Other long-term plans include prioritizing preventative maintenance, enhancing outage monitoring via advanced technology and communications, and supporting growth.