An IPL representative told the Public Utilities Advisory Board on June 12 that crews restored power quickly after a localized tornado, bringing outages from a peak of “a little bit above 2,000 people out at 1 time” down to about 50 customers within 24 hours.

The IPL representative said crews prioritized temporary repairs to restore service quickly and followed up with permanent repairs once sites were accessible. “If it's sometimes gonna be a timely thing, then, yeah, they'll make a temporary repair and get power restored and then come back when you have time,” the speaker said. The board was told no outside assistance was required for that event.

On summer preparedness and customer communications, the IPL representative said the utility’s communications team maintains a Facebook page with seasonal energy-saving tips and program information, and that the department will continue to communicate storm-restoration progress during outages.

On advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), IPL said the program-management request for proposals received nine respondents; staff narrowed that field to three finalists, who made on-site presentations. “With each one of those, the conversation of an opt out, what does that look like? How have you done that in the past? That was part of the discussion of every single one of those contractors,” the IPL representative said. Staff are completing reference checks and grading; IPL hopes to present a recommendation to the PUAB next month and then to the city council.

IPL staff also told the board the customer-service group is developing a redesigned bill layout with usage trends and clearer information and that the bill redesign is intended to pair with a future AMI customer portal.