CINCINNATI — Matt Jacob thought somebody was setting off fireworks near his home in north Over-the-Rhine this week. It turned out to be the power lines, giving off sparks during sub-zero temperatures on Dec. 14 and 15.
“It was like someone just had a Roman candle, just shooting them off for five minutes until finally the lines gave and the power shut off,” said Jacob, a senior financial analyst for the Cushman & Wakefield commercial real estate firm.
A part-time developer, Jacob said he's grown frustrated by recurring power outages in Over-the-Rhine and the “rat’s nest” of electric and telecom wires that seem to cluster on streetcorners near his East Clifton Avenue home.
Just another night in northern OTR where @DukeEnergy powerlines are arcing next to occupied apartment buildings because of disinvestment
— Matt Jacob (@mattjjacob) December 14, 2025
The rat nests of cable wires & old uninsulated power wires is dangerous up here#thisisotr pic.twitter.com/70ujN8i4yF
“It just doesn’t feel like anyone’s ever come down here and modernized anything,” Jacob said. “I’ve experienced a lot of blackouts down here in north Over-the-Rhine. I’ve seen transformers explode. I’ve seen sparks a lot of times, probably close to 10 times” in the last 12 years.
And that’s why Jacob was frustrated to learn Ohio utility regulators want to make it easier for Duke Energy to comply with state standards on power grid reliability.
“I’m sure there’s other parts of town where they’re doing a great job, but down here, they’re really missing the ball,” Jacob said.
Watch our I-Team's investigation into Duke Energy's reliability here:
SAIFI and CAIDI
The Ohio Public Utilities Commission sets annual targets for utilities, based on their average number of service interruptions per customer and the average duration of those power outages. The first standard is known as SAIFI, for System Average Interruption Frequency Index. The other is CAIDI, for Customer Average Interruption Duration Index.
Duke passed both standards last year for the first time since 2020.
But in May of 2024, the utility proposed changes to its SAIFI standard that would make it easier to comply by allowing an average of 0.87 service interruptions for each of its 760,000 customers. That’s up from an average of 0.75 interruptions in the three years prior to the proposed change.
Duke also asked for its CAIDI standard to increase from 137 minutes to 141.6 minutes.
Duke failed the SAIFI standard for three straight years, starting in 2021. But it complied in 2024 by reporting 572,793 service interruptions, which was 75.3 outages for each of its 760,793 customers that year. If its SAIFI standard were 0.87 in 2024, Duke could have reported 89,000 more outages and still met the state target.
Ohio Consumers’ Counsel Maureen Willis opposed Duke’s proposal in a February 2025 filing with the PUCO and called for an evidentiary hearing on the matter.
“As consumers are being charged higher and higher utility rates, they have a reasonable expectation that they will receive more, not less, reliable service. But Duke’s proposals in this case will make service to consumers less, not more reliable,” wrote Willis, leader of the consumer advocacy group since 2023.
In October, PUCO staff endorsed Duke’s proposal for service interruptions and proposed a duration standard of 134 minutes. The PUCO has yet to vote on the staff recommendation and continues to take public input on the matter.
Jacob has a different idea: “I think they should be held to these standards in smaller geographies than their whole service area.”
'Let their lines rot'
Jacob is convinced that his neighborhood has less reliable power service than the rest of Greater Cincinnati. That’s why he took to social media when the sparks started flying at 1705 Lang Street this week, criticizing Duke for “not proactively reinvesting in northern OTR where many powerlines have insulation falling off.”
He also filed a PUCO complaint on the issue and asked the WCPO 9 I-Team to “investigate the mismanagement of power lines” in Over-the-Rhine.
“Duke shouldn't be allowed to let their lines rot like this,” Jacob wrote. “Things like this wouldn't be tolerated in other parts of the city, but it feels like my neighborhood is being ignored because of who lives here.”
Duke Energy said it responded quickly to both Over-the-Rhine incidents and restored power shortly after arriving. The first incident was caused by a transformer issue. Cold weather was likely a factor in the second.
“We have a structured maintenance process,” said a company statement. “However, we cannot control outside forces such as weather from causing issues with electrical service. Our teams respond quickly to these issues when they arise and work to mitigate the issues when we find them.”
Duke declined to comment on the proposed changes to its reliability standards.
Duke customers paying more
Whether it achieves easier standards or not, Duke will have a lot more money to spend on reliability in the years ahead.
That’s because the PUCO adopted a new rate structure for Duke in May that allows it to collect up to $107.5 million from customers in 2026 through a Distribution Capital Investment Rider. That’s up from $83.8 million in 2025 and $57.4 million in 2024, according to the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel.
A DCI rider funds improvements to a utility’s electric distribution system, OCC said. Duke’s rider would cost $8.45 this month to a customer using 1,000 kilowatt hours of electricity.
“I’ve been paying into the fund for a long time, and it doesn’t feel like any of it’s made it to my street,” Jacob said.
Duke showed how some of that money is spent this week, when it invited WCPO to see its Midwest Power Distribution Control Center in Harrison.
Joshua McCord, the center’s director of operations, said Duke’s ‘self-healing’ grid technology averted 400,000 outages this year by diverting electric currents around storm damage.
"Duke Energy is always investing to improve the grid reliability for our customers," said Joshua McCord said. "The customer is number one. Every single person in this room is focused on the fact that they know a customer is without power, and they treat it with that level of sincerity and that level of criticality."
Duke’s distribution capital investment work plan for 2025 listed $206.5 million in projects, including $28.5 million for grid switches and distribution capacity needed for the self-healing technology it launched in 2021.
Reliability and integrity programs represented Duke’s largest spending category at $38.2 million while distribution circuitry ranked second at $33.7 million.
The workplan showed “self-optimizing grid” improvements were planned this year in Cumminsville, Fairfax, White Oak and Union Township, Clermont County.
No projects were listed in Over-the-Rhine.
