Requiring non-publicly owned utilities to notify customers by text correspondence that they have turned off their service and an estimated time of when it will be turned back on.

HB 2848 requires private and investor-owned utilities in West Virginia to send text messages to customers during service outages. The texts must state that service is interrupted, provide an estimated outage duration in 30-minute increments, and specify affected areas using city, county, and state boundaries. This applies to all non-publicly owned utilities and takes effect on July 1, 2025. The bill directly affects customers experiencing outages who currently may not receive timely outage notifications.