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PUCO review of AEP Ohio's decision to cut power incomplete, 5 months after outages

A spokesperson for the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio said there is no timeline for when the report will be published.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio has yet to release a report on the forced power outages that impacted hundreds of thousands of people during extreme temperatures last summer.

On June 13, AEP Ohio initiated an emergency outage without advance notice to customers due to severe storms, extreme heat and high demand. The company said had it not acted when it did, there could have been catastrophic outages, leaving more people without power and for a longer time.

RELATED: AEP to spend millions improving electrical grid to prevent another massive outage

At its peak, approximately 250,000 Ohioans were without power – including 170,000 in central Ohio, according to AEP. 

The extreme heat lasted for several days, as did most of the outages.

In a statement issued a week after the power was cut, Gov. Mike DeWine said that many questions need to be answered, such as:

  • What steps are Ohio’s utilities taking to ensure that the significant disruption Ohioans experienced last week does not occur again? 
  • Why did certain central Ohio neighborhoods lost power and others did not?
  • Why did certain northeast Ohio communities took the better part of a week to come back online?
  • Did utilities do enough to communicate to their customers?

PUCO promised a post-incident review and five months later, that report remains unfinished. A spokesperson told 10TV there is no final timeline for when the review will be published.

RELATED: AEP Ohio promises better communication with community in response to mass outages

RELATED: Internal email shows AEP Ohio didn't pre-position crews ahead of June storms

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