ELIOT — It takes a trained eye to spot the metal sheaths enveloping electrical lines strung along Route 101 here. But to Lloyd Hendrix, they are easy to see, and each one tells a story. Hendrix, manager of process and technology for Central Maine Power, was driving the rolling hills of forest and farmland recently to show why this stretch of rural highway near the New Hampshire border has one of the worst records of power outages in the company’s service territory. Those metal sheaths mark where wires were broken and have been spliced over time, typically victims of trees weakened by decay, branches buffeted by storms or weak poles that snapped and pulled down lines. “Look right here, more splices,” Hendrix said, pointing to a section where four splices were visible. “There’s a lot of splices on this line.” This fall, CMP plans to beef up 20 miles of this trouble-prone circuit. Roadside trees will get an enhanced trim. One hundred and sixty poles will be replaced with stronger and taller versions. Automatic switches will be installed to segment the circuit, so if a tree falls on one end, it doesn’t black out all of the 2,392 customers hooked up to it.

What’s happening along these lines in Eliot is part of a larger, 10-year initiative in Maine and New York by CMP’s domestic parent company, Avangrid. The effort has two main goals: Reduce the number of customers that experience outages. Restore power faster when outages do occur.

These goals form the foundation of a request at the Maine Public Utilities Commission to charge CMP customers $29 million over the next two years for a plan aimed at improving 12 of the worst-performing circuits in the system. That breaks down to $8.2 million in 2019 and $17.5 million in 2020, plus another $5 million for more-aggressive tree trimming.

The plan has received little public attention, so far. It’s tucked deep inside CMP’s current rate case, and has been overshadowed by a parallel inquiry into the cause of billing errors that followed the launch of a new software system in late 2017, and subsequent complaints about high bills. The new revenue would be a component in the estimated $3 a month extra that home customers would pay on an average bill, if CMP’s 11 percent rate request is granted in total.

But the hardiness of CMP’s distribution system and its ability to bounce back also can rivet public attention – in an instant. It’s not an exaggeration to say the only thing that gets electric customers more incensed than high bills is having no power at all.

The so-called Halloween windstorm in October 2017 left a record 470,000 customers in the dark, some for more than a week. Restoration cost $69 million, amid complaints that CMP was caught off-guard and mismanaged its response. The PUC found that both CMP and Emera Maine acted reasonably, and could recover restoration costs over time through rates.

But the Halloween storm and similar events in New York have put Avangrid on notice. Noting the impact of a changing climate, the company has observed that “the number of storms of all types and severity that CMP has experienced over the past decade” are growing.” That’s a bad trend in a digital, increasingly electrified society that’s demanding always-on power.

“As businesses and residences rely more on electric vehicles and other electric end uses,” Avangrid wrote in a recent filing at the PUC, “CMP expects that the tolerance for extended outages will continue to diminish.”

CMP’s 2019-2020 Resiliency Plan is the first phase of its program to upgrade 101 circuits responsible for roughly half the number of outages, as well as cumulative hours offline. CMP has a total of 475 distribution circuits.

This section in Eliot is ranked 17th worst of the 101 subpar circuits. It experienced 154 separate events between 2015 and 2017, largely linked to squirrels or other animals, or trees, touching the wires. That led to power being off for 15 hours, on average, over the time period. A few communities to the north, a section of South Sanford is ranked ninth worst out of 101. From 2015-2017, customers lost power for an average of nearly eight hours a year because of 200 separate events.

CMP’s worst-performing circuit is in Monson, near Greenville. Customers in that rural, heavily wooded area were powerless 30 hours a year from 2015-2017.

All these figures, however, exclude the infamous Halloween storm in 2017.

COMPROMISES ON TREE TRIMMING

But proposed solutions for these vulnerable circuits and the associated cost to ratepayers will be controversial.

For instance: Most outages in Maine are caused by trees contacting power lines. That’s not surprising, as 89 percent of the state is forested and CMP’s service area, with 22,000 miles of overhead wires, is considered among the most wooded in the country. It’s one reason the state topped a national list last year for the average number and duration of outages.

CMP has an approved vegetation management plan in which contractors trim around electric lines every five years to maintain specific clearances, but still allow for an overhead canopy. That’s a desirable compromise for property owners and tree-loving residents, in general. The problem is, 94 percent of tree-related outages are caused by trees outside the approved trim zone.