The recent power supply outage on Mackinac Island caused considerable inconvenience to Edison Sault’s customers. It was an unfortunate and embarrassing situation for the Company, especially in light of the quality and reliable electric service that Edison Sault has provided to the Island over the years.

The August 4, 2000, Order of the Michigan Public Service Commission in Case No. U-12551 directed Edison Sault to prepare "a detailed report setting forth the reason (or reasons) for the repeated interruptions of its electric service to Mackinac Island … ." The reference to "repeated interruptions" is particularly troubling to Edison Sault, given the collected data for the last five calendar years, which shows that the service level on Mackinac Island was about 41% better than the service level throughout the Company’s service territory.

Edison Sault prides itself on providing economic, quality and reliable electric service to all its customers, including those on Mackinac Island. As the following table shows, the number of trouble calls since 1995 (most of which relate to outages to varying numbers of customers) for Island customers is actually substantially lower than has been the Company’s experience for its total system.

In addition, the information reveals that (based on the percentage of Mackinac Island customers to total customers and the percentage of Mackinac Island trouble calls to total calls) the number of Mackinac Island trouble calls is less than would have been expected if service levels had been at Edison Sault’s system average trouble call rate.

To further examine the trouble call information, Edison Sault examined its Outage Reporting System for detailed information concerning Mackinac Island. Please refer to Appendix 2.1 for the relevant data and Appendix 2.2 for a summary of outage events. The data shown are for the second half of 1996, when the system was placed in service, through mid-August 2000.

This information shows that the customer outages are due to a variety of reasons including birds and small animals, wind, lightning, tree branches, various components in the electric distribution system (cables failures, broken connectors, protective surge arrestors, failed insulators, etc.), as well as problems with customer-owned equipment, connection of customer service, and reconnections of service.

As a result of this series of major outages, Edison Sault conducted a review of the capability of the distribution system on the Island and made a variety of major improvements to its system including

• a fuse coordination recloser study culminating in upgrading fusing and relaying equipment,

• installation of a new primary switching cabinet on Grand Hill,

• infrared testing of distribution circuits, and

• installation of automated SCADA equipment in the St. Ignace Substation to allow remote operation of circuit breakers.

The 1993 outage events were thoroughly documented and reviewed by many parties, including the Michigan Public Service Commission. Edison Sault developed and executed a plan that addressed these and other related problems in an expeditious manner.