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Report: Utilities Took Too Long to Fix Power
Laura Incalcaterra - Journal News, July 7, 2009
PEARL RIVER - Power companies serving Rockland and Westchester counties failed to get the lights turned back on fast enough in 2008, a new report concludes.
As a result, the state Public Service Commission is essentially "docking" revenues for both Consolidated Edison and Orange and Rockland Utilities Inc. in the amounts of $5 million and $400,000, respectively.
O&R, a subsidiary of Con Edison's, also flunked when it came to customer service surveys and will face further "negative revenue adjustments" tallying $125,000, according to the PSC.
That's money neither company will be able to turn over to its shareholders but may instead be forced to use to offset customer costs, among other possibilities, PSC spokesman James Denn said.
The state agency can impose the revenue cuts when an electric utility fails to meet targets for performance reliability. Out of the seven companies included in the report, only Con Edison and O&R missed the targets.
The PSC looks at data that both includes and excludes outages due to storms.
Storm outages are far harder for companies to prevent, versus outages due to equipment failures or power line maintenance.
The PSC also looks at data that both includes and excludes Con Edison's statistics from the overall statistics for the remaining six electric utilities in New York.
Con Edison's stats are further isolated into its underground and above-ground systems. Con Edison has by far the lowest number of outages and skews the overall state statistic, the PSC said. Most of Con Edison's system includes a secondary network of power supply that greatly reduces the chances of an outage.
But the underground system got the company in trouble.
Con Edison serves about 3.2 million customers in Westchester County and New York City. Westchester is primarily served by an aboveground system, and the city is mostly served by an underground network.
In response to a request for comment, Con Edison spokeswoman Joy Faber provided a statement:
"As the PSC report noted, our above-ground electric delivery system - which serves most of our Westchester customers - performed satisfactorily 'and better than in the previous year with respect to its network (underground) frequency performance.'
"The most recent statistics on our underground network system - largely serving New York City - reflect more sophisticated computerized tracking of customer outages and have been experienced by other utilities implementing the new technologies as well," Faber said.
Con Edison, which also fared poorly in the 2007 reliability review, has to submit plans for improvement to the PSC by Sept. 15. Orange and Rockland Utilities, which serves about 217,000 customers in New York, failed to meet the duration target for its overall system, most of which is above the ground.
O&R spokesman Michael Donovan disputed the results.
"O&R believes that the methodology used in this statistical annual measurement does not provide an accurate picture of O&R's electric service reliability," Donovan said in a statement. "We are engaged in a discussion about this analysis with the PSC and that dialogue is continuing."
In the report, the PSC says O&R has expressed concern that "distribution automation equipment" is contributing to issues regarding duration, but it also notes that equipment failures caused 34 percent of O&R's outages and trees caused 31 percent.
All companies, except O&R, also had fewer customers affected by power outages, excluding major storms, in 2008 than in 2007.
The PSC attributed the improvement to more storms; there were 35 more in 2008 than in 2007, and storm outage figures were excluded when examining responses to outages, and the duration of outages, which was slightly worse in 2008 than in 2007.
O&R fizzled yet again when it came to customer service quality. Electric and gas utilities met or exceeded the standards for the vast majority of measures, the agency said. But three, including O&R, didn't do as well and face revenue cuts, the report said.
O&R's Donovan said customers held the company responsible for things it had no control over. "As to the Customer Service incentive, O&R's results were negatively affected by customers' answers to a survey that included a question about their view of O&R's bills, specifically price," he said.
The company only delivers power and gas; it does not also create or control its price, he said.
The PSC report said that price, along with 48 other measures such as complaint rates, customer satisfaction and service appointments, were considered in the survey.
Additional Facts
Slow power return
The state Public Service Commission's 2008 Reliability Performance Report found Consolidated Edison and Orange and Rockland Utilities Inc. failed to get the lights turned back on fast enough following power outages that weren't caused by storms.
- Con Edison's underground system had 5,485 interruptions that impacted 40,301 customers and lasted an average of about six hours and 17 minutes.
- O&R's system, which is primarily above the ground, had 2,993 interruptions that impacted 256,943 customers and lasted an average of about one hour and 50 minutes.
- Excluding Con Edison, the statewide average outage was about an hour and 53 minutes.
- Including Con Edison, the average was about an hour and 56 minutes.
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