BY RITA COOK / Freelance Writer
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OVILLA – Ovilla city leaders have recently gotten involved to improve electrical service reliability in the city.
While electricity is not a service provided by the City, Ovilla Mayor Richard Dormier, Councilmembers, and City management have been working to represent residents by reaching out to Oncor regarding frequent power outages in Ovilla.
Ovilla City Manager David Henley explained, “Oncor delivers electricity to homes and businesses but is not a retailer. Citizens have a right to choose their provider.”
With the frequent power outages Oncor will be working in the area to improve service reliability. The company is responsible for maintaining and operating the poles, wires, and physical infrastructure that deliver electricity in their Texas service area, regardless of which Retail Electric Provider people choose to buy power from, and, Henley said. “They manage the grid, fix outages, and handle new line construction, but they don’t sell or price electricity.”
To that end, Oncor crews are installing cut-outs on power lines to isolate and limit outages, inspecting equipment and lines, and proactively addressing vegetation-related hazards.
Henley said he does not know the exact timeline of this work being done.
Many of the electrical outages Ovilla faces have been during inclement weather, mostly storms and high wind, but there have been random outages as well.
Henley added outages are a common occurrence.
“They did tree trimming a while back through parts of Ovilla which seemed to help in those areas,” he said.
Oncor has informed the city they are actively taking steps to address the issues that have contributed to the ongoing outages.
“The City of Ovilla understands the frustration residents have experienced with power outages.
“While electricity service is not provided or controlled by the City, we have been actively advocating on behalf of our community. We will continue working closely with Oncor to ensure that reliability improvements move forward. Our goal is to keep residents informed and to advocate for the consistent service our community deserves.”
