A Lightning Strike Causes a $34 Million Loss

 

Here is an interesting case where failure to provide proper lightning protection for a power station caused a loss of over $34 million dollar: $8.3 million for the repair plus $26 million in incremental cost of replacement power.

 

31 October 2007
16:34
PR Newswire (U.S.)
English
Copyright © 2007 PR Newswire Association LLC. All Rights Reserved.

GREEN BAY, Wis., Oct. 31 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Wisconsin Public Service Corporation, a subsidiary of Integrys Energy Group, Inc. (NYSE: TEG), today updated the cost and timeline for repairing the damage resulting from the October 6, 2007, lightning strike at its Weston 3 power plant near Wausau, WI.

Wisconsin Public Service expects the plant to be out of service until late 2007 or early 2008. Wisconsin Public Service has received approval from the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin (PSCW) to defer the incremental cost of the replacement power, which gives Public Service the opportunity to recover the cost of the replacement power when those costs become known. The company expects those costs to be at least $26 million. Wisconsin Public Service has requested similar deferral of non-fuel operating and maintenance costs incurred to return Weston 3 to service, which is currently estimated to be $8.3 million. This application is pending before the PSCW, and was updated today with the new estimated cost and timeline.

The company has insurance in place to cover the equipment damage resulting from the lightning strike, less a $1 million deductible. Assuming a favorable outcome for the recovery of these requested deferred costs in future rate proceedings, Integrys Energy Group does not expect that this incident will have a material impact on net income.
Weston 3 is a 321.6-megawatt base load coal-fired generating facility located near Wausau, Wisconsin.

 

This information was submitted by Abdul Mousa from the Lightning Safety & Power Quality Issues group on Yahoo. To learn more about this group click here.