Pepco, the electric utility that serves Washington, D.C., and its Maryland suburbs, will spend $256.5 million over the next five years to accelerate planned improvements to its distribution system after it struggled to recover from a severe thunderstorm in late July.
More than 322,000 Pepco customers lost power after the storm; the company took five days to restore the power. The utility added $115 million to a planned system reliability upgrade after executives were grilled by the Maryland Public Service Commission about their response to the July storm and back-to-back snowstorms in February. Earlier this month, Pepco asked state regulators to approve a rate hike to cover the added improvements and schedule acceleration.