Leaders of Bossier City and Southwestern Electric Power Company (SWEPCO) this morning discussed the company’s plan to improve electric reliability after a rash of outages affecting residents.
SWEPCO will install “smart switches” on a circuit that stretches from the CenturyLink Center to Airline Drive near I-220 and east toward Bossier Parish Community College. These switches automatically will isolate outages, reducing the number of customers affected. The switches are expected to be in place by the end of 2018.
Customers recently have experienced a number of power outages that, upon investigation, are largely unrelated, but nonetheless inconvenient.
Roughly half of the recent outages resulted from storms. Other causes include vehicles colliding with utility poles, trees falling on power lines, and equipment shutting down for safety reasons, for example, while a crew replaces power poles.
Bossier City residents are encouraged to report outages to SWEPCO through SWEPCO’s app, SWEPCO.com, or by calling 1-888-218-3919.
Outage information, including estimated restoration times, also are available through SWEPCO’s app, SWEPCO.com, and by phone.
