We are doing our utmost to get all power back on by the end of the week. Crews from SVEC, Musgrove Construction and Bryant Tree Service continue to clear trees and make repairs to the electric system, and line crews from other co-ops have arrived today to help.
As we work to restore service to our members, we want to provide insight on the challenges we are facing that are limiting recovery efforts in large parts of our service territory.
At SVEC our wholesale power supplier that generates and provides our electricity is Seminole Electric Cooperative. The use of electric transmission facilities is required to move the electricity that Seminole generates. Because of where we are in Florida, Seminole relies upon third party transmission facilities owned and operated by investor-owned utilities, Florida Power & Light and Duke Energy Florida. SVEC receives the electricity provided by Seminole, transmitted by FPL and Duke, and then we distribute that electricity to you, our members.
Because of Hurricane Irma, FPL and Duke have experienced widespread disruptions and damages to their transmission facilities serving our area. When these facilities experience outages and become unavailable, Seminole is unable to get its power supply to SVEC.
We are working diligently and urgently with FPL and Duke to start receiving the electricity that Seminole provides. Until FPL and Duke restore their transmission infrastructure, SVEC cannot begin distributing electricity to many of our impacted members. We should be able to get a lot more people back on once we have transmission infrastructure available to deliver the electricity generated by Seminole. In some areas, we will need to continue distribution-level repairs.
Please be assured that both Seminole and SVEC are doing all we can to restore electric service as quickly as possible.
We understand how deeply disruptive this interruption is to you, your family, and/or your business. As we work to receive a clear understanding of when these transmission lines and facilities will be restored, we will keep you updated as well.