DWP may face more major outages

It could take decades for officials to fully upgrade the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s sagging electrical system, opening the possibility of a reprise of the massive outages that deprived more than 79,000 customers of service last summer, according to two recent reports obtained by The Times.

Since July, the department has repaired or replaced 1,300 to 1,500 of its 126,000 electrical transformers, said Henry Martinez, chief operating officer for power, including the 800 that failed or caused outages at the height of the record summer heat.

The utility is developing a new model for determining how much energy a neighborhood will need, and has vowed to speed up replacement of power poles, cables, transformers and other key equipment, according to Martinez and the two reports, which were produced by his staff.

As a percentage, the DWP’s transformers held up better during the heat wave than those of other utilities, including Southern California Edison, whose customers suffered more than the city department’s, Martinez said. About 6% of DWP customers lost power, compared with 23% of Edison’s and 24% of Pacific Gas and Electric’s.

But after years of deferred maintenance, the utility -- which blamed the power failures on old equipment and a system designed for a time when people used far less electricity -- will face significant obstacles when trying to upgrade its infrastructure.

“If we have another heat wave next summer under the same circumstances, we’re going to have another problem,” DWP Commissioner Nick Patsaouras said. One of several commissioners appointed to the troubled agency’s board by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa after he was elected last year, Patsaouras blamed previous management teams and DWP commission leadership for inattention to the agency’s needs.

For example, according to an internal report prepared last month, more than 40,000 transformers -- equipment that helps put electricity into a form that can be used by homes and businesses -- are more than 35 years old. That’s about the average age of the ones that failed last summer. Nearly 1,000 are 60 years old or older.

Most transformers are expected to last between 35 and 50 years, depending on how they are used and set up. The DWP is trying to develop a more realistic assessment of how long its transformers will last.

Power poles, which should be replaced every 60 years at most, instead are being changed at the rate of once every 255 years, with a 4,000-pole backlog. Electrical cables are being replaced at the rate of once every 105 years.

The system is rife with circuits in need of repair, as well as what engineers call open circuits, which are not protected from rain and can fail if they become wet.

“The power system is not keeping up with the maintenance requirements of its aging facilities,” read a report distributed to city officials in September.

Read another: “There currently is a significant backlog in maintaining over 40,000 circuit breakers, disconnects, transformers, circuit switchers and voltage regulators.”

Martinez, however, said that enough work would be done over the next several months to improve the utility’s response, should another heat wave occur.

“I think the system will operate more reliably than it did last summer,” Martinez said. “We’ve made a significant dent already.”

Going forward, he said, the most important repairs should be completed within five to seven years, though the reports show that certain cables -- of World War II vintage -- would take 20 years to update, and replacing some other parts will take longer if the work is not accelerated.

To make matters more difficult, the agency faces a looming shortage of workers as 40% of its employees become eligible for retirement over the next several years.

It takes four years to train someone to work on the dangerous, high-voltage equipment, according to the documents, and hiring rates “are not adequate to replace attrition and meet increased work load.”

Patsaouras and others on the agency’s board have said that one way to speed up the work is to hire outside contractors. The idea has the support of some of the utility’s top brass, and both reports urged its adoption.

“We cannot wait for umpteen years for the existing personnel to replace the cables,” Patsaouras said. “This is urgent.”

But the reports also say efforts to hire outside vendors will be slow because the agency has allowed its contracts with the companies that would do much of the work -- replacing poles and power lines -- to lapse.

Brian D’Arcy, business manager for IBEW, Local 18, which represents 6,700 DWP employees, opposes hiring outside contractors and says there is a national shortage of people qualified to do the work.

“Where are they going to hire them from?” D’Arcy asked.

For employee recruitment, he said, the utility is wasting too much time seeking highly qualified applicants from a nationwide pool. A better way would be to accept local applicants with a lower level of education and make up for it by intensifying their training.

“They are fiddling while Rome burns,” D’Arcy said.

It is still unclear how much the work will cost, but DWP officials know how they want to pay for it: with rate increases phased in over several years.

A final study that includes financial estimates and a timeline for the repairs is scheduled to be completed early next year, Martinez said.

After the agency figures out how much it wants to spend, officials will approach the DWP commission and the City Council and request rate hikes, he said.

Mindy Spatt, communications director for the utility watchdog TURN, said that is to be expected. “Customers of course want the most reliable electricity possible,” she said. “But they will have to pay for it.”

sharon.bernstein@latimes.com