Have We Learned Anything From the Great Blackout of 2003?

Nine years ago, the Great Blackout of 2003 struck the United States and parts of Canada from Ohio to New York. 50-60 million people were thrown into darkness, including millions in the New York City metro area. I was among those who had to figure out how to get home without subways/PATH or rail signals operating. Highways and roads were jammed because traffic signals were out.

Power was eventually restored, with the outage running as long as 30 hours in some parts of the affected area, and we learned that the outage was initially due to a transmission line in Ohio failing due to a tree falling, but the outage spread as utilities failed to contain the problems. That triggered a cascading failure across the Northeast.

The utility responsible for maintaining that Ohio transmission line failed to maintain its right of way and carry out tree trimming and other preventative actions.

Has the United States improved its transmission infrastructure to the point where we don't have to worry about another catastrophic blackout? I'm not so sure. Utilities and their regulators have improved their communications to reduce the chances that a blackout in one interconnect will affect others.

But as we've seen over just the past year, utilities have repeatedly fallen short on maintaining their utility rights of way - particularly on tree trimming. Blackouts due to Hurricane Irene, Tropical Storm Irene, and the October blizzard of 2012 all were exacerbated by utilities that failed to deal with tree trimming issues in a systematic way. Connecticut was particularly hard hit by those storms, and CLP's disastrous efforts in restoring power were hammered by state and local officials. A failure to carry out an effective tree trimming program was identified as a contributing factor.

Regulators have to do a better job in making sure that the companies are investing in the transmission grid and responding to outages in a timely manner. They have to make sure that the utilities are investing in tree trimming programs to protect their infrastructure, though that would seem like a no-brainer since it's cheaper to protect the transmission lines through a systematic tree trimming program than trying to rebuild parts of the network during a crisis. Utilities have to upgrade and invest in technologies, and that also means that rate payers have to deal with higher costs that are passed on to them.

PSE&G has been doing a better job of trying to upgrade its infrastructure; it's currently upgrading transmission lines in Rutherford and Fair Lawn as well as building out its distributed solar power system. Con Ed is also spending on its infrastructure, but with mixed results - there are perpetual concerns of brownouts and blackouts whenever the temperatures spike during the summer because the distribution system can barely keep up with demand. That has to change.

Connecticut Panel Hands Down Recommendations Over Electric Utility Reliability

Once you attach a price tag to any project, all of a sudden supporters suddenly balk at making the necessary changes.

Connecticut residents suffered horrendously at the hands of Connecticut Light and Power during the double whammy of Hurricane Irene/Lee and then the freak October snowstorm. Millions of people were without power for days on end, and the utility was ill-prepared to deal with the snowstorm even after seeing how badly it responded during the hurricanes.

A panel set up by Governor Malloy has issued numerous recommendations, but it would call on rates to go up 10% in order to increase reliability by 30-40%.

The strongest recommendation was one that came from Connecticut Light & Power on the last day of the hearings – a proposed $2.2 billion plan to boost reliability.

Panel co-chair Joe McGee says the utility claims the plan would boost resiliency by more than a third, but will customers be willing to pay more for this?

“Their proposal was a 10 percent increase in your monthly bill for a 30 to 40 percent increase in reliability of the system,” said McGee.

In all, 82 recommendations were passed onto the governor for his consideration.

One of the reasons that the utility did so poorly had nothing to do with rates, but everything to do with not getting regional assistance plans in place to bring in supporting utilities from outside the region in a timely basis and then doing a poor job coordinating those efforts. Throw poor communications on top of everything else, and what you get is a mismanaged utility that can't do its basic job - delivering reliable power to its customers.

It can claim that those rate increases will improve reliability, but one has to question how other utilities in the state were able to do a far better job without similar rate increases (see PSE&G and even Con Ed and LIPA - and Con Ed and LIPA aren't exactly paragons of virtue when it comes to power reliability and dealing with outages). CPL skimped on tree trimming and other maintenance issues, and that had a large part to do with just how badly it handled the crisis.

So, what else does the panel recommend and find? Well, it realizes that the state has been hit by a string of severe storms, and that climate change may be involved (and might lead to even more severe weather events).

The panel called on the state to develop new engineering standards that will better protect the built environment from the effects of extreme weather and those standards should then be incorporated into the State’s Building Code within six months of development.

The panel also noted that there's a toxic work relationship between the utilities and their workforce, and that the utilities must prepare a worst-case scenario based on a Cat 3 hurricane (which is stronger than what the state experienced but well above the previously planned worst-case scenario that posited only 100,000 outages statewide; there were 1 million outages during the two weather events in 2011).

Tree trimming and infrastructure hardening is one of the priorities that must be addressed, but it shouldn't take a 10% increase in rates to accomplish.

Connecticut Light and Power CEO Resigns Amid Criticism

The CEO of Connecticut Light and Power has resigned. Jeff Butler has stepped down after his company failed to restore power following the October nor'easter in any semblance of a timely manner, and after withering criticism over how the company failed to make necessary preparations ahead of the storm that could have mitigated the disastrous blackouts and restored power more swiftly.

There are multiple investigations into CLP's mishandling of both Hurricane Irene and the snowstorm, and one area of attention is whether the company put profits ahead of power distribution and maintenance programs (including tree trimming).

Connecticut's Utility Fails To Meet Own Deadline To Restore Power

Connecticut Light and Power is the poster child for all that is wrong with power utilities in the country. Not only can it not provide its basic purpose - reliable power distribution, but it can't even make its own deadlines to restore power to hundreds of thousands of people across the state.

Thousands of customers are still without power two weeks after the early season snowstorm.

CLP's parent company, Northeast Utilities, has put up $10 million to offer assistance to its customers and waived penalties and other fees from the storm period. That's cold comfort to the hundreds of thousands of customers who were without power for nearly two weeks.

Gov. Dannel Malloy empowered a panel to investigate the utility and thus far there's no good news for the utility. It cut back on tree trimming, and while the utility can claim that it has spent more on trimming in recent years, it's less than it was spending a decade ago (as adjusted for inflation). That translates into less miles of line that gets trimmed - meaning that more trees are likely to cause service disruptions.

Others are now focusing on CLP's parent company, and how the political favors and lobbying has won it the right to little oversight or responsibility when things go horribly wrong.

The State Attorney General is working with a risk management company to try and figure out what the utility did and is an expansion of similar investigations being carried out in the wake of the utility's failings during Hurricane Irene.

There are five separate investigations ongoing into CLP's actions during the aftermath from Irene and the snowstorm.

Lights Still Out For 100k Customers In Connecticut

So much for self imposed deadlines. Connecticut Light and Power (CLP) blew its self-imposed deadline to get 95% of service restored. More than 100,000 customers are still without power across Connecticut, as compared with nearly all customers restored in New York and New Jersey and Massachusetts.

CLP is now saying that service will be restored Wednesday. Anyone want to give odds on that?

There are further rumblings that the utilities may seek rate increases to cover the storm damage costs.

Sorry, but as someone who lost power for a couple of days, was severely inconvenienced by the loss of power, and poor customer service, I doubt anyone will stomach rate increases when there's evidence that the outages were extended due to the utilities own failures.

This includes not reimbursing mutual support companies for their work done in prior storms that led those companies to scale back the number of responding units. Pennywise and pound foolish looks like a theme in Connecticut, and to a lesser extend in other utilities as well.

Putting the bottom line above maintaining a dependable transmission grid has led to cutting back on basic maintenance. Trimming trees once every four to five years is insufficient. This storm once again showed that power lines are extremely vulnerable to wind and storm damage and that tree trimming must be much more aggressive to reduce the chances for outages.

So, while it means that many old growth trees might need to be pruned or removed, the upside is a much more reliable grid. Trees should be part of the landscape, but size-appropriate trees should be put in place. That means that 80-90 foot trees should make way for trees that are 20-30 feet tall and less likely to bring down lines and in places where burying lines makes sense (such as when roads are already going to be torn up for utility/sewer work/repaving projects), then the utilities should also be relocated underground. I think people will support plans that reduce damage going forward, but aren't going to sit still and take rate hikes for the companies own failings.

All of this is little comfort to those who are now without power for eight days. Among the worst hit areas include around Farmington, where more than 50% of customers remain without power.

Gov. Malloy now says that the situation is unacceptable. About time he did so. He's been late on getting ahead of the storm damage wrought by the early nor'easter. While he says that the state is mulling its options, here's a few ideas:

1. require all utilities to devote far more resources to maintaining, pruning, and other basic services;
2. impose penalties for outages that are the result of failing to adequately trim trees that lead to outages that last longer than they otherwise should have when the utility knew, or had reason to know, that the storm damage was likely;
3. impose penalties for delays that last longer than a period of time that cannot be reimbursed through rate hikes; and
4. clear red tape when it comes to tree trimming programs so that utilities can prune trees as necessary to maintain rights of way.

Utilities Still Working To Restore Power Across Northeast

While PSE&G and Jersey Power and Electric are close to getting the lights turned back on for all of its residents, Connecticut consumers aren't so lucky. There are more than 300,000 customers still without power.

Why did Connecticut Governor Dan Malloy wait until yesterday to activate the National Guard to help with clearing trees and debris from roads? Activating the National Guard would have freed up resources and helped localities get reconnected to the grid faster.

Yet the real problems lie with Connecticut Light and Power (CLP). They've done so much wrong in handling this crisis that someone will likely do a case study about how a utility shouldn't function.

But giving Northeast, specifically its Connecticut Light and Power subsidiary, a divine pass is like absolving Lehman Brothers of any blame for its demise in 2008. Like financial firms, utilities need to manage risks. And they have it relatively easy: much of the task simply involves clearing overhanging trees and other hazards from power lines.

Yet according to regulatory filings, Connecticut Light and Power cut its maintenance spending by 26 percent, from $130 million in 2008 to $96.5 million last year. Put simply, that seems to suggest that one in every four trees that could have been trimmed was left untouched, though the company says the maintenance line was depressed by a deferral of expenses for accounting purposes.

The utility showed the same kind of tin ear as some banks, too. Even as customers still faced a week without electricity after Irene struck, the Connecticut Light and Power boss, Jeff Butler, suggested any restoration costs should be covered by increasing electricity rates — when Connecticut’s power is already the most expensive in the continental United States. Mr. Butler later backtracked. But this week he suggested the weekend snowstorm came without warning — words he was again forced to eat.

There’s even a near-perfect model of how Connecticut Light and Power could have done the job better. Norwich, Conn., a city of 40,000, has owned its own electric utility, as well as those for sewage, gas and water, for 107 years. Norwich Public Utilities’ customers pay, on average, a bit less than Connecticut Light and Power’s. Yet after this past weekend’s snow dump, power was out for only about 450 of its 22,000 customers — and for no more than an hour. As of Thursday morning, nearly half a million Connecticut Light and Power customers were still waiting for the lights to go on.

That’s not luck, either. After Irene hit, just 13 percent of the city’s customers lost their power for more than a day. Within three days, the whole of Norwich had been restored. It took more than a week for Connecticut Light and Power to fully restore power.

That makes it seem odd that Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has tended to appear alongside Connecticut Light and Power’s Mr. Butler and to support the utility, even though far more customers lost power than should have and restoration proceeded too slowly. There’s solid numerical evidence to justify Mr. Malloy’s berating Connecticut Light and Power and calling for Mr. Butler’s head on behalf of the citizens of his state.

In contrast to Connecticut Light and Power, Norwich’s electric unit last year increased operations and maintenance spending by 11 percent, to $2.9 million. Put another way, in 2010 Norwich allocated about $132 a customer to this line item in its accounts. Connecticut Light and Power reported maintenance, unadjusted for deferred expenses, of $96.5 million, or around $78 per client.

They refused to get mutual assistance calls in before the storm hit so that they didn't have prepositioned units ready to respond. They didn't take the weather forecasts seriously enough - even after everyone in the region knew that the early season snows would bring down trees because most trees still had their leaves. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that snow of any significance would lay low trees and power lines when the leaves are still on the trees.

CLP can't make its own self-imposed deadlines for service restorations, and that's completely unacceptable, particularly in light of the way that the company has cut back on basic maintenance.

It's abundantly clear that CLP failed its customers, but it further appears that the state of Connecticut failed its citizens as well in not taking appropriate steps to handle the natural disaster. When the state saw that CLP wasn't getting the job done in any semblance of a timely manner, it needed to act. The governor failed to do so.

Someone must be held responsible for the ongoing failures, and that includes both the utility and the governor.

Back in New Jersey, the last few remaining outages are being dealt with and some single customers may be out of power for longer because the damage affects more than the power line to their homes or businesses (taking out the lines all the way to the utility box/meter for example). Some towns are already out of snow days and are contemplating extending the school year to meet requirements.

Municipalities around the region are also dealing with how to clear tree debris. Some, like Fair Lawn and Wayne, are allowing residents to bring all tree debris to the curb and crews will pick them up if they bundle the trees/branches and cut them down to size. Landscapers will have to cart away tree debris.

However, in Mountainside, New Jersey, the town workers are cutting branches along the right of way but are then throwing the tree debris back on to the properties for the owners to remove. That's an absolutely asinine policy - but the town claims that they aren't responsible for removal.

And for a real estate market that is already rocky, the loss of so many trees means a reduction in curb appeal. Healthy trees can add up to 10% in value to a home. I'm spending quite a bit of money to get the damaged trees on my property pruned following the storm. Healthy trees were most affected by the storm since they still were in full leaf.

Frustrations Mount As Millions Remain Without Power Across Northeast

While there's been quite a bit of good news in New Jersey (particularly PSE&G) in restoring power, other areas aren't so lucky. Jersey Central Power and Light has the bulk of the outages in New Jersey, and PSE&G has reduced their outages to about 20,000 statewide (mostly Northern NJ). Those that are still without power can't take solace in those figures.

JCP&L is urging people to be patient, but as the outages wear on and the weather remains cold, it's hard to give the company any slack. After all, PSE&G was able to cut down the number of outages significantly, although towns like Teaneck remain a mess and schools remain closed as a result of the ongoing outages.

Orange and Rockland still has thousands without power across the Hudson River valley, and CLP still has more than 400,000 customers without power.

The frustration is mounting, and there's quite a bit of chatter about how CLP has misallocated its resources, including not giving mutual assistance crews the go-ahead to fix downed lines and equipment when they have the ability to do so. Power isn't expected to be restored until the weekend in large parts of Connecticut, and it doesn't appear that anyone is going to hold the utility responsible. Gov. Malloy is talking the talk about how they're trying to safely restore power and that it will take time, but isn't taking the right tone in dealing with the utility, which seems to have done everything wrong - from refusing to make the mutual aid calls in a reasonable time frame, to underestimating the level of damage, and then not giving its mutual assistance crews the ability to fix what needs to be fixed so that areas can be restored.

Some localities are considering suits against the utility. One in particular is Simsbury, which claims that the utility has only one crew working there - and that the public works crews are trying to clear streets, but need the utility to sign off on whether the lines are safe to work around and clear.

When asked whether the town was going to seek a lawsuit against Connecticut Light & Power, Glassman said the town is extremely disappointed that up until Wednesday they have had one CL&P crew working in Simsbury.

The town sued CL&P in the 1990s for the same reason because there were too many outages at the same time.

As a result of that lawsuit, CL&P increased their tree-trimming program, upgraded their transmission lines and added a substation in Simsbury which has since improved power in Simsbury.

“But we have a lot of questions now,” Glassman said. “Why five days into the storm do we only have one crew assigned to Simsbury, which was one of the hardest towns hit? So we will be exploring our options including litigation.”

Public Works Director Tom Roy said Tuesday they have every single person working on the restoration efforts and there are several contractors clearing the streets and debris.

“What our goals are right now is to get access to residents by car and emergency vehicles,” said Roy. “The limiting factor for us the majority of trees that have not been cleared at this point are entangled in the power lines. We need CL&P to verify that it is safe to work near them.”

Clearly, it appears that CLP is in hot water with its customers and regulators better take a good look at whether it's exercised reasonable prudence when it comes to maintaining its grid, handled trimming trees properly, and then failed to address the outage in any semblance of urgency.

Power Remains Out For Millions In Northeast; Connecticut Remains Hardest Hit

While I may have gotten power restored yesterday, millions of other people in the NYC metro area and up into New England are still suffering for lack of power.

PSE&G has been ramping up its response, and they've got more trucks and equipment stashed at the parking lot for Garden State Plaza than when they used it as a staging area for Hurricanes Irene and Lee. They're using the lot to stash equipment ranging from poles and transformers to power lines and other key equipment to get the distribution lines up and running.

Connecticut Light and Power is saying that it hopes to get power restored to 99% of its customers by Sunday. There are also reports that CLP's response may have been slow because the company hadn't paid contractors for work done during the storm response to Hurricane Lee and Irene.

On Tuesday, Butler also said that he was aware of reports that a slow response from out-of-state contractors who were hesitant to travel to Connecticut to aid in power restoration was because they had not been paid from their work during tropical storm Irene.

When asked if the non-payment had been an issue that prompted the contractors to avoid showing up sooner in Connecticut this week, Butler said, "I'm not aware that it has been.''

"I know our customers are extremely frustrated,'' Butler said. "It's not a pleasure to have customers without power.''

He added, "Unlike Irene, it's cold at night. ... We recognize the frustration.''

Butler is the COO of CLP; and the company better be looking at revisiting the policy in light of the devastating outages that affected all parts of Connecticut and nearly took CLP off the grid entirely.

Trying to pin the blame on the lack of mutual aid from PSE&G or Con Ed makes no sense, not when utilities up and down the East Coast from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York were struggling to deal with millions of outages themselves. PSE&G was bringing in crews from Ohio and elsewhere to assist; so too was Con Ed; yet CLPwas finding it difficult to track down mutual assistance? That would appear to have more to do with the CLP company policy than the mutual assistance companies.

Even the feds are noticing that the storm response is slower than during Irene, particularly in Connecticut:

Bryan says utility companies didn't have time to get additional workers from other regions in place before the snowstorm like they were able to do before Irene in August. The companies had several days to prepare for Irene and only a few days to prepare for the snowstorm, which hit the region harder than was forecast. At midweek last week, some forecasters said the storm was going to miss New England.

Thousands of extra crews from across the country are now helping to restore power in the Northeast, where some utility customers aren't expected to get their electricity back until next week.

"When you know you've got a hurricane coming, part of the mutual assistance package is to pre-stage crews," Bryan said. "So after the hurricane has come and gone, you already have crews on the outskirts ready to come in and start working. … This storm hit, and these crews were not mobilized."

Six thousand extra utility crews were either working in the Northeast on Tuesday or getting close to arriving, officials said.

Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, who asked the Department of Energy for help in coordinating the cleanup and power restoration response, said Tuesday that he was disappointed that the number of out-of-state crews helping in the state was lower than expected. A spokeswoman for the governor said he wasn't criticizing the utilities' response, just trying to do everything he could to get the power on quicker.

About 700 extra workers on Tuesday were helping the 200 regular crews of Connecticut Light & Power Co., the state's largest utility, which had requested 1,000 additional crews. The weekend storm caused more than 830,000 outages in the state — a record — and about 650,000 customers remained in the dark Tuesday.

Bryan said it appeared there were problems in the way extra workers were being distributed in the region.

"If you look at the outages in Connecticut, which basically equal the outages of all the other places combined, you really don't have yet a fair distribution of workers, mutual assistance teams out here doing this," Bryan said.

CLPadmits that they didn't request mutual assistance before the storm hit, as they did in preparing for Hurricane Irene. That was a serious mistake on their part, and one of the reasons why it is going to take as long as it is for power restoration.

The latest figures on outages is here.