PSEG meeting 67% of reduced metrics, but falling short on customer satisfaction

PSEG Long Island is meeting about two-thirds of a shortened list of performance metrics set by LIPA, but is once again behind on key measures of customer satisfaction and system reliability, according to a midyear report.

The report card, which shows PSEG at midyear meeting 67% of a list of performance measures, which have been reduced in number to 51, was released at a committee meeting before a LIPA board session late last month in which trustees approved a five-year contract extension for the New Jersey company. In 2023, LIPA held PSEG to a list of 91 metrics, of which it fully met 63%. Last year it fully met 49% of 62 metrics. PSEG still has through Dec. 31 to make the 2025 metrics.

The midyear metrics report was released a day after newly named LIPA chief executive Carrie Meek Gallagher fired senior vice president Billy Raley, a five-year LIPA veteran, after a discussion in which he declined to sign off on less restrictive performance metrics for PSEG, Raley told Newsday.

In all, according to the report, PSEG is "at risk" of missing 10 of the 51 metrics, is behind target for four others, and three others hadn’t yet begun work. It is meeting 35 of the metrics, according to the report. Results "are expected to change throughout the year," so PSEG could achieve higher than 67%, the report notes.

PSEG can earn $23.9 million in bonus compensation payments from LIPA if it meets all the metrics, but it can receive partial credit for achieving portions of them. Last year PSEG earned $15 million of an available $21 million after fully achieving just 49% of 62 metrics, Newsday reported.

PSEG spokeswoman Katy Tatzel, in an email, said, "We appreciate the challenge that the metrics provide and are proud of the extraordinary work our team has done to date to achieve the ambitious stretch goals laid out in the contract."

Metrics at risk this year include critical ones on the average duration and frequency of outages, which PSEG missed last year, and one for reducing "sustained multiple outages" for some customers. PSEG is meeting targets for momentary outages.

PSEG in the report cited outages tied to motor vehicle accidents, animal contacts, equipment failures and six storms for the longer average outages during the period.

As it has for the past several years, PSEG is behind the target for its score on the J.D. Power residential customer satisfaction survey, taking 11th place in the 2025 survey thus far among 18 large eastern utilities. PSEG when it started the LIPA contract in 2014 had a goal of being in the top 25% of the group, but remains in the third quartile.

It’s also behind in its metric for the electric vehicle make-ready program, according to the report, while meeting metrics for building electrification, heat pumps and transportation electrification. A goal to separate LIPA’s computer systems from those of PSEG’s New Jersey parent is on target to take place by year’s end, after several years of delays and cost overruns.

LIPA’s report says PSEG "may request" exceptions to metric requirements, including "extensions to due dates and changes in project scopes, requirements or methodology." Thus far this year, PSEG has requested 57 such exceptions, and LIPA has approved 53. PSEG can also seek an "exemption or waiver" of a "deliverable" covered under the metrics.

The metric report notes PSEG is meeting the metric for reducing serious worker injuries to zero, but in a note later in the report LIPA points out "there have been three injuries that were deemed significant, where PSEG notified LIPA."

However, the report notes, "Follow up with PSEG Long Island indicates that neither the PSEG Long Island T & D employee’s February injury, nor the two injuries to the vegetation management contractors are SIIRs," the formal term that would trigger the serious injury incident rate classification in LIPA’s metric, and "all of them [workers] have returned to full duty." The report notes PSEG has "implemented corrective actions stemming from the lessons learned in 2024."

LIPA didn’t immediately comment on its classification of those injuries. Tatzel of PSEG said, "the incidents that occurred this year did not qualify as SIIRs." 

Newsday previously reported Raley and LIPA trustee Dominick Macchia expressed concern over a "disturbing" increase in the rate of serious injuries at PSEG and its subcontractors over the past five years, with the number rising to five in 2024. LIPA and PSEG enacted a root-cause analysis and "corrective action plan" to address the spike.

PSEG is at risk of missing its target of reducing the number of double-wood poles that sometimes remain on the grid after an older pole has been replaced.

As of the report there remained some 8,658 double wood LIPA poles, against a target of 7,296, the report states. Larry Mikorenda, president of the Longwood Chamber of Commerce, said he’s complained since February about a double-wood pole on Route 25 in Middle Island, which also presents a hazard, he said, because electric lines are too close to communications.

But the double pole remains. "It’s ridiculous that we have a big electrical company that can’t take care of simple things like poles," said Mikorenda, who is worried a storm could make the situation worse.

Tatzel noted the double-wood metric "involves collaboration with telecommunications and other third parties to remove pole attachments before the pole can be safely removed. We will continue to reach out to these third parties to ensure all attachments are removed and the additional pole can then be removed as quickly and as safely as possible." 

By Mark Harrington

mark.harrington@newsday.comMHarringtonNews

Mark Harrington, a Newsday reporter since 1999, covers energy, wineries, Indian affairs and fisheries.