Arizona Public Service (APS) revealed last week that it is well-prepared to meet customer energy demands this summer.

The electricity utility company serves almost 1.2 million customers throughout the state.

At a summer preparedness briefing, APS said it has built a more effective energy grid based on lessons learned from last summer in which customers dealt with the most outages in five years due to weather conditions such as wind, rain and lightning.

"We are ready to deliver the extraordinary amount of power it takes to keep the lights on and the air conditioners running during a hot Arizona summer," Pat Dinkel, VP of transmission and distribution operations at APS, said. "Our crews know our customers rely on energy to power their lives. We do our job to ensure there is reliable power flowing to their homes and businesses."

 

APS will be able to handle this years expected summer peak of almost 7,000 megawatts as it has 8,500 MW of power accessible for its customers. The energy this summer will also be carbon-free; APS now has approximately 1,300 MW of renewable energy.

Throughout the year, APS has been working to harden the grid by using infrared equipment to monitor the condition of the infrastructure in the system. Additionally, crew members have installed more steel poles to help prevent longer stretches of poles falling down when there are high winds.

While Dinkel said APS can't promise that there won't be any power outages, he assured customers that crews will be on hand to fix problems should they occur.