Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

eddie964 t1_j1ecjkr wrote

There is no scenario in which power can be restored instantaneously after a storm knocks thousands of trees down on power lines and cuts power to 100,000 or more people.

No matter how many crews they have on hand, and how many more they bring in, they still have to address immediate safety concerns (e.g., live wires on public roadways), conduct a damage assessment, develop a restoration plan and send out crews to each individual outage-causing event (potentially thousands of them) to do the physical work of cutting trees, erecting poles, replacing transformers and re-stringing line.

Even if Eversource planned and prepared perfectly, and had all necessary resources on hand and ready to go, complete restoration could be expected to take multiple days.

8

krugo t1_j1eq2d5 wrote

It would be nicer to have bigger, more prepared crews rather than millions more in executive payouts though. Every little bit helps.

8

LordConnecticut t1_j1g483a wrote

Idiotic. You’re argument is analogous to this:

“There is no scenario where you can drive Boston to NYC instantly, so even if you drive normal highway speeds it will still take hours to get there.”

So you’re saying we should blame Eversource for driving 5 MPH for that trip? Because that’s what they do. They’ve gutted themselves in the name of regulatory avoidance and profit. All you need to do is look at how quickly other utilities in other states restore power when they have the same number of outages.

Enough with the Eversource apologies. May the entire board rot in hell.

7

eddie964 t1_j1g9wy5 wrote

My point is that there are real limits to how quickly a utility can restore power. You could have a thousand crews lined up and pre-positioned before the storm starts, and all but a dozen or so are going to be sitting around collecting double-time-and-a-half for the first 12-24 hours while the rest clear downed trees and pull live wires off roads. You can't fix damage you can't get to.

Although major repairs get underway as soon as it is safe, most of those 1,000 crews will continue to sit in their trucks, sipping coffee and making money for the subsequent 12 to 24 hours while assessment is underway. And then you have to factor for the time it will take to actually repair the broken system.

Could Eversource manage this process better and more efficiently? Almost certainly. But eventually, you hit diminishing returns.

After Isaias, IIRC, it took Eversource eight days to get the last customers back on. They had made a bad guess as to how impactful the storm would be, undercommitted restoration resources, and performed poorly during the effort. They got justifiably creamed by PURA. They got slapped with tens of millions in fines and penalties, suffered a reduction of their allowed profitability, and got a whole shitload of unwanted (by them) new laws and regulations.

PURA and the General Assembly got a lot of headlines and tried to come across as tough on the utilities, but here's what no one is telling you: Even if Eversource had prepared correctly and executed its restoration plan perfectly, it would have had power fully restored maybe 24 hours sooner. If it had overcommitted and gone well beyond what its restoration plan specifed, it might have cut that by another day.

Either in that case, there would still have been massive numbers of customers out 48 hours after the storm, and full restoration work have taken six days. Hell, even if they could have gotten it down to five days, customers would have been showing up with pitchforks and torches, calling for heads to roll, after two days without power. And that's just not realistic.

−3

LordConnecticut t1_j1gasn4 wrote

I understand what you’re saying, but you’re either too young to remember or have forgotten that 20 or more years ago, restoration for similar storms with similar amounts of outages took several hours to days at most, not weeks.

There is no guesswork here. It’s not conjecture. We have seen better in this state and it’s a direct comparison to past recoveries.

You’re using a baseline that is also shit. You’re assuming the restoration plan was “good enough”. There are no diminishing returns lmao. Line workers don’t become less productive the more of them there are.

8

eddie964 t1_j1gbw8t wrote

Categorically not true. Hurricane Gloria took well over a week to restore. And having lots of crews on the ground is just a waste of money until you can get them to the damage sites and know where to send them.

−2

LordConnecticut t1_j1gshfz wrote

Yes that’s right, it was the longest outage to date at that point. Strangely, it wasn’t until the 2010s when there was another outage that long, and then there were several in a row….

5

evillordsoth t1_j1fkrm7 wrote

> even if eversource planned and prepared perfectly

I don’t think we need to worry about that.

I’d love to know about money they spent on resiliency. I havent seen them burying lines when the towns tear the roads up.

6

eddie964 t1_j1fkwq8 wrote

A million dollars a mile to bury lines, not counting what homeowners will have to spend to bury their service connections. And, buried lines are vulnerable to flooding.

−3

evillordsoth t1_j1fl577 wrote

I don’t think its a million dollars a mile when the town tears the road up for other repairs. I think that million dollars a mile quote includes all of the money to dig and then road resurface.

Other municipally owned utilities like bozrah l&p bury lines when the road has to be torn up to repair sewers or lay nat gas pipe.

6

emeria t1_j1gofv5 wrote

If only our tax dollars were better planned to get more for our money.

3

Aran613 t1_j1ekeuj wrote

Hope that boot tastes good bro

Edit: lmao the US infrastructure and power grid has been wildly susceptible to these kinds of damage for so long and power companies refuse to use their record high profits to strengthen any existing infrastructure and they're just cashing in instead of taking any sort of preventative measures so that this doesn't happen. Keep downvoting tho

3

_343_Guilty_Spark__ t1_j1ezglh wrote

I’m downvoting because you’re equating common logic with “boot licking” and after realizing how stupid and wrong you were you doubled down with an edit that managed to be even more retarded than your original statement

:)

3

Aran613 t1_j1f1o7n wrote

So what do you think was incorrect? Eversources Financials are public information. They're making more money than ever and also hiking rates. Do you disagree with that? If not, you should look it up. It's only a Google search away.

Do you disagree with the state of the US power grid and general infrastructure being weak? Do you remember a power station shooting earlier this year that will be down for months? Wasn't there warning that the entire US grid is equally susceptible and poorly maintained?

Surely some of that money that these Eversource execs are making could be used to strengthen these networks, right? Especially with all that money they're making after hiking their rates?

You didn't address anything in my comment lmao

7

Vandersnatch182 t1_j1f3fzm wrote

Other countries like Germany that have a national power grid and almost never lose power because of it. Idk why we're not emulating them

5

Downvoterofall t1_j1fdxc6 wrote

I’m genuinely asking, does Germany get the type of storms/weather that the US does?

0

Vandersnatch182 t1_j1feoag wrote

That I'm unsure of, but I know that Germany is much smaller, area wise, so actually achieving a national power grid is actually plausible over there. Not that America can't do it... I wish we would.

1

LordConnecticut t1_j1g4csm wrote

Yes lol. But it wouldn’t matter. Because all the lines are buried except for the main transmission lines.

1

_343_Guilty_Spark__ t1_j1f5qih wrote

If that’s what you wanted to say then you would have said it in the first place. Instead you attempted to attack someone and it blew up in your face so now you’re upset and tripling down by openly lying about me not addressing your comment. It’s literally in my first sentence lmao

Everything the original poster said was 110% correct. You can think Eversource sucks and that they should invest in burying the lines while also using the two brain cells required to understand that this is the current reality and attempting to insult someone from behind a screen isn’t going to fix anything

2