Wait Just A Moment More…

As I stated in my last blog, “…all you need to do is wait a moment and something else will happen to highlight what you have been saying for years”.

In that blog, it was the Illinois Attorney General’s office report on the ComEd outages last summer which made the claim that last summer’s outages were not unpreventable acts of God, but were mainly caused by years of neglect of equipment and lack of tree-trimming by ComEd.  The latest report faulting a utility for poor maintenance practices comes from Massachusetts.  A recent article in the New England Center for Investigative Reporting, Insult To Injury, states that there has been a quadrupling of major power failures in Massachusetts over the past five years. These major outages were once a somewhat rare occurrence but now have become annual occurrences.

The article goes on to quote Representative Daniel Winslow, “They (the major power companies) are gambling with the weather and they gambled and they lost.”  Representative Winslow has proposed legislation in the Massachusetts House that would result in millions in rebates for customers stuck without power for days on end.  This is growing evidence of the publics’ impatience with more frequent and longer power outages.

The report goes on to say that the Massachusetts Municipal Association has taken a different path than the larger IOU utilities.   The municipalities have more linemen per 10,000 customers than the larger IOUs’.  This is singled out, in the article, as a major reason the municipalities were able to restore power faster after the storms than the larger utilities.  If larger utilities were to match the number of linemen per 10,000 customers to that of the municipalities, the large Massachusetts utilities would need to hire an additional 613 new linemen.

To further back up these claims of poor grid maintenance, the report turns to a couple of academics, John Sterman, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and Massoud Amin of the University of Minnesota.  John Sterman was quoted in an article in the Boston Globe, John Sterman on the Great October Snowstorm: Utilities need to cut trees, not costs where he states, “The US electric grid is failing. From 1991 to 1995 there were 41 outages affecting more than 50,000 customers each, but nearly 350 from 2005 to 2009”.  In the same article, Massoud Amin is quoted as saying, “Building a smart grid would cost $17 billion to $24 billion per year, but generate benefits of $69 billion per year from greater reliability and efficiency while cutting carbon emissions and stimulating the economy”.

These types of conversations are beginning to have an effect and several states are now considering legislation to fine utilities for outages.  But, you say in your mind that this could not happen.  Yet, as an example to this, the article states that since 2010 airlines can now be fined $27,500 per passenger for tarmac delays exceeding three hours.  It is noted in the article that since enacting the airline law, delays have fallen dramatically.  Needless to say, everyone wants to kick the utilities over their growing frustration with more frequent and longer outages, so such laws are a real possibility.

I for one, have been saying for years that utilities need do their homework and realize that the smart grid is really about better reliability and efficiency.  Those utilities that are still waiting to see what happens with smart grid development need to realize that there are bigger fish to fry than just reading meters.  The early AMI adaptors have recognized this for years and have already made their moves.  The remainder of the industry still waiting to see what will happen may already be in trouble and sliding down the slippery slope.  A good indicator that you are on the slippery slope is the growing public anger over the increasing frequency of outages.  These outages could become even more frequent if impacted by the Solar Maximums which is just beginning its peak cycle.  The Solar Maximums will continue into 2013 and the sun is the biggest influencing factor on weather.   Couple it with the increased pollution in the atmosphere and you may have a very toxic mix.   All of this on top of the public’s mood of not being very tolerant of continued excuses.  Utilities will need to utilize every tool they can to stay in the game going forward.  But, I don’t think utilities, which are still waiting, are sure which quarter it is and how much time is left on the clock.