Posted on 11/03/2011 10:50:57 AM PDT by matt04
State lawmakers are proposing new standards for power restoration and steep penalties for utility companies that fail to meet them.
"We have some of the highest electric rates in the country but we don't have the best service,'' House Speaker Chris Donovan said at a press conference this morning at the state Capitol complex. "You would think for the highest rates we would have better service.''Donovan and state Rep. Vickie Nardello, co-chairwoman of the legislature's energy and technology committee, are proposing the state Public Utilities Regulatory Authority establish a series of benchmarks for power companies. The proposal is modelled on similar rules enacted in Massachusetts in 2009."What we're here [for] today is to talk about being better prepared, to have a better restoration process that is backed up by law," said Donovan, a Meriden Democrat who is running for Congress. "If fines are a way to induce companies to do that, we will look at that. Massachusetts has twice the number of crews that we have and they're restoring it at a better pace. so apparently there's a difference between Massachusetts and Connecticut.
(Excerpt) Read more at articles.courant.com ...
If the rates were market rates, you'd be right.
Are they market rates, or are they gubmint rates?
Apparently they haven’t heard that Martha Coakley is investigating N-Star and National Grid for not getting everyone back on line quick enough. It’s the trees Martha! A friend of mine is a lineman for Grid. He worked himself ragged after the Hurricane and then he paid $5,000 in Income Taxes on the Overtime.
“Hello, we’re with the government, and we’re here to help...”
Like the utility won’t pass the fine on down to the consumer. Duke power is already raising our rates 20% because of all the enviro/greenie/weenie crap thay have to deal with.
How about we pass a law that makes snow storms illegal before all the leaves have fallen?
I did hear an unconfirmed story though, that CL&P may be having difficulty getting crews to CT because they were slow to pay after Irene. Not sure if it’s true, but paying as late as possible is SOP business practice now a days.
House Speaker Chris Donovan is an idiot. He wouldn’t last 30 minutes under the conditions linemen have to work under in major restorations like this one. I hope they restore his power last.
The real question is: when these Libtards sue G-d, will He appear in court?
I hear that also. They never reported when CL&P got the supposed invoices though. If they came late, no wonder they were paid later than others.
Whatever, politicians always need to look like they’re “Doing Something!”. A-holes.
I predict that power rates will rise because of this. I suppose the “poor” will be subsidized, so once again, the middle class gets screwed. Welcome to the new Soviet Union of American States.
In my neck of the woods, the utility guys in the trucks do not want to cut the trees and overhanging branches. The reason is called “overtime”.
Sounds like Congress passing the original deadline for the digital TV switchover for 2006.
There were not enough trained tower crews on the planet to possibly meet that deadline. Did not stop Congress from setting it though.
Every utility should leave the state in response to these penalties. Let Connecticut buy its power and gas from somewhere else, and we’ll see how much control they have over the utilities then.
A PSE&G supervisor working the restoration process this week in Essex County New Jersey, was interviewed on air yesterday and told the reporter they had over 1,000 trees and tree limbs to clear in Essex county alone.
Since any additional measures to get such a massive effort done in less time will involve additional expenses, to be borne in some manner by consumers and/or taxpayers, legislators should stick to the instruments THEY are in charge of and, if they are insistent on pushing their authority into the issue, they can work to beef up their state and local government’s emergency management operations; particularly in as much as most of the trees that are problems are on either public or private land, not land of the utility companies.
Or, as the best long-term measure, they could mandate that all electric utility lines in need of repairs or servicing be moved to underground lines during those repairs/servicing, if they are not already underground. Experience has shown that flooding is less of an issue to underground electric lines that is wind and snow to overhead lines. Spend any repair money putting them underground.
So all of you tree huggers in CT don’t care for being in the dark, eh? Well, get used to it because the Obozo’s EPA has determined that combusting carbon based fuels to make electricity will be illegal. Have to save the planet you know. Windmills and solar panels will make up the difference. So, this is what you’re gonna get when the wind don’t blow and the sun don’t shine. Elections have consequences.
Uh, that’s really not practical. Usually a tree will take down one of two spans of primary, maybe break some cross arms and a pole or two so you’re talking about 100 to 300 feet of a circuit that may be several miles long. Even if you bury that short section you still have several thousands of feet of overhead exposed to the elements. The reliability of that circuit will not be appreciably improved. Besides, in these kinds of situations the crews are looking to get the lines back up and energized as quickly as possible. They don’t have time to mess around with trenching in URD and putting on all of the terminators.
You mean utilities are allowed to cut down trees?
I live in the land of PG&E. The guys that don’t maintain their pipelines, and don’t maintain their wiring. We have outages every year, and things go BOOM!
I agree, the idea I expressed would not be practical, in emergencies. O.K.
However, the utilities and the state and local officials really need to assess the costs of the emergencies with overhead lines, and the efforts trying to prevent problems from trees by mere tree-trimming, and compare those costs, over a 20 year period, with possible cost savings if more lines (long or short) were underground.
If my guess is correct, that underground lines are less expensive in the long run, then, as often as possible and practical existing overhead lines should be buried and all new lines should be buried (as they are now in many places). The long term cost savings should pay for the gradual shift to underground.
I read not too long ago about a group of neighbors on a street where the city and the power company informed them of a plan to do some major tree-trimming along their street, as a preventive measure for saving the overhead lines.
After finding out how much tree-trimming was going to take place, they asked the utility company for an assessment for putting all the overhead lines on their street underground. They were part of a relatively well-off community. After hearing the cost assessment, they told the city to go ahead and have it done and they would pay for it (and save their beautiful tree lined street).
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