Roundtable: Region’s utility companies focus on reliability

WILKES-BARRE — When it comes to utilities in Northeast Pennsylvania, one word comes to mind — reliability.

So much so, that reliability is not just good business practice — it’s vital.

John Augustine, president and CEO at Penn’s Northeast, recently held a Utility Roundtable at the Times Leader with all three local utilities represented. Attending were:

Alana Roberts, PPL regional affairs director; Don Brominski, UGI business development director; Allison Dennison, UGI sales manager; Traci A, Cross, Pennsylvania American Water senior director of operations; and Daniel Rickard, Pennsylvania American Water senior manager of operations.

Representing the Times Leader Media Group were: Kerry Miscavage, publisher; Joe Soprano, executive editor; Liz Baumeister, news editor; Mark Guydish, editorial writer.

Rachel Hawk, Penn’s Northeast marketing director, also attended.

The title of the roundtable was: “The Role of Utilities in Community & Economic Development.”

“Utilities play a vital role in community and economic development in the regions that they operate in,” Augustine said. “The goal of the roundtable was to showcase the partnership between Penn’s Northeast and the utilities and the benefits they bring to the communities that they serve outside of their main role of providing service.”

Economic and community development

“Marcellus shale was a game-changer for us,” said UGI’s Brominski. “Our prices can’t be beat anywhere in the U.S. We’re averaging 10,000 to 15,000 new customers per year. We seeing constant growth.”

Augustine agreed, noting the loads on utilities are increasing constantly and delivery time has not been affected. He said utilities are constantly making improvements to their systems to position themselves to meet the growing demands of existing and future customers.

“Reliability is at the top of our corporate values — it’s in our DNA,” said PPL’s Roberts.

All the utilities said they feel optimistic about the next five years, from an economic development aspect.

Augustine said when COVID hit, there was a significant breakdown in the supply chain, with companies looking to move inward from the port areas.

“Over the next five years, we see incredible growth for our region,” Augustine said. “Along the Interstate 81 corridor, we have 65 million square feet of space waiting to be developed.”

Augustine said that NEPA has benefited from a “spillover” from the Lehigh Valley area and he expects that trend to continue.

“These utilities are getting ready for that new development,” Augustine said. “We’ve already recently seen seven international companies set up shop in NEPA. We’ve never seen that type of growth before.”

Augustine said NEPA has seen less $9-per-hour jobs and many more in the $17-per-hour-and-up range.

“And right now we have the lowest unemployment rate in history,” Augustine said. “The challenge will be to find the workers needed to fill the jobs that are coming.”

Augustine noted that new jobs will attract new workers and the demand will be on all areas of the industrial group to create new neighborhoods with housing stock and infrastructure and, of course, access to all utilities.

PAW’s Rickard said the water company will be faced with extending its systems and the challenge of an aging infrastructure.

“We are constantly replacing old water lines,” Rickard said. “Some of the lines were put in by Civil War veterans. We replace an average of 20 miles of lines per year, plus our system is always expanding.”

Rickard, like Roberts of PPL and Brominski of UGI, says all of the work costs money, which will result in higher customer rates.

“The only way we can offset rates rising too high is by adding customers,” Brominski said.

Roberts said PPL has a 29-county service area and there is opportunity for growth.

“We have the capacity to meet the demands of that growth,” she said.

And customer service is also at the top of each utility’s priority list. Any issue reported to the utilities will be resolved as soon as possible, they said.

When a severe storm hits, or some other issue that causes an interruption is service, the utilities all said that restoring service as soon as possible is top priority.

The utilities also have programs to assist customers in bill paying.

Challenges/opportunities

All the utilities said regulations are always an issue and more seem to be added often. Augustine said other areas of the U.S. have sped up the process of securing permits. He said if the permit process takes too long, it could delay a company’s decision to locate here — or worse, they could decide to go elsewhere.

“It could mean winning or losing a new employer,” Augustine said.

PPL’s Roberts, UGI’s Brominski and PAW’s Rickard and Cross agreed, saying that it could take three years in some cases to get from planning to putting a shovel in the ground.

They all said there are challenges in workforce patterns as well, such as identifying employees prospects and also the expense that goes with that.

PPL and UGI each employ approximately 1,700, and PAW has 1,200 employees.

Community involvement

Roberts said PPL and its employees are deeply involved in the communities they serve. She said in 2022, PPL donated $6.3 million to nonprofit organizations and their employees have given countless hours as volunteers.

Same goes for PAW and UGI, both saying they encourage community involvement and they donate corporate dollars as well.

“We are all involved deeply in the communities we serve,” said PAW’s Cross. “We really do go above and beyond to give back to the community.”

UGI’s Brominski said he serves on a number of area boards and committees and many in the company do the same.

“At UGI, we feel we’re only successful if we have healthy communities,” Brominski said. “Strong communities are critical to strong utilities.”

PPL’s Roberts added, “I’m really proud of all of us. We are competitors, but not adversarial. And we are also collaborators. We’re all in this together for our customers. And we’re all here to stay.”

Roberts, Brominski and Cross said they all work together. They said improving their systems is an ongoing process.

Epilogue

Augustine said that more than 20 years ago when discussions were held about creating a regional economic development agency, the utilities were very supportive.

“They knew first hand that in order to be effective and grow our region, we needed to promote our collective assets,” Augustine said. “The affordability and reliability of utilities consistently rank in the top five criteria by site selector consultants.”

Augustine said the region is fortunate that our utility companies go above and beyond to give back to the community in which they service.

“All of them have various programs to improve the quality of life and specifically are members of Penn’s Northeast which helps us to market the region,” he said. “It is important that they continue to invest in their infrastructure so that we can maintain a competitive advantage over other states.”

Augustine said the region’s proximity to the Marcellus Shale provides our region with an endless amount of affordable and reliable energy.

“Utilities play a crucial role in economic development by providing essential services and infrastructure that support various sectors of the economy,” he said.