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RE: OUTAGE TRACED TO DIM BULB
Another aspect of regulation - a regulated utility with a defined service
area is the one and only institution charged with ensuring that there's
enough electricity when it's needed. A deregulated system has no one in
charge of making sure there's enough capacity. And, since the various
federal and state governments spent so many years letting deregulation
approach, even the regulated utilities became reluctant to build new
capacity because there was no assurance of a return on the huge investment
that goes with electrical generation.
That has led to utilities relying on each other's excess capacity rather
than self-reliance. Power demand is heavily weather-related, so, in
principle, wheeling power from other parts of the country should allow for
optimum use of generating capacity and save everyone money. The problem is
that the grid was developed in an era of more self-reliant, regulated
utilities that didn't plan on moving such large amounts of power. Thus, the
grid system sometime can't handle the load, and is more fragile than we'd
all like.
That's why the power in question last week was being moved from Ohio thru
Michigan to Canada, over to the east, and down to NY - the grid across PA
can't handle the kind of load that was involved, so they have to ship the
electricity around PA.
As long as no one is responsible for planning and constructing generating
capacity for future needs, the system will remain fragile. Welcome to
deregulation.
Bob Flood
NTS
> -----Original Message-----
> From: RuthWeiner@AOL.COM [mailto:RuthWeiner@AOL.COM]
> Sent: Monday, August 18, 2003 11:36 AM
> To: crispy_bird@YAHOO.COM; maury@webtexas.com; radsafe@list.vanderbilt.edu
> Cc: scottwilson14@suscom.net
> Subject: Re: OUTAGE TRACED TO DIM BULB
>
> Actually, John is correct. Transmission lines are not regulated, are
> owned by utilities and there is no way to mandate reliability standards,
> according to the Electric Reliability Council (I think that is its name),
> which is a private industry group. The Reliability Council, according to
> its spokesman, has been trying to get standards made mandatory for many
> years.
>
> And here is some food for thought for all you anti-government-regulation
> folks out there: Electricity market areas are by and large fixed (except
> for the disastrous California experience); e.g., I HAVE to buy electricity
> from PNM, or generate my own. Do the shareholders in PNM, or the PNM
> executives care if I am without electricity or water? Not unless they are
> personally affected, which they most likely aren't. PNM wants my money,
> and the only control on how much they charge and what they deliver for the
> money is the NM Public Utilities Commission. There is no way at all that
> as a private customer I could require them to maintain or upgrade reliable
> transmission. I have nowhere else to go for my electricity or the lines it
> is transmitted on, as PNM knows perfectly well. Requirements for
> reliability would of necessity be a government mandate. This is why
> electricity was regulated in the first place -- to protect the consumer,
> not by some greedy power-hungry government.
>
> I believe that we actually DO have "government by the people" and we get
> the government we vote for. So did the citizens and consumers who voted in
> the governments that gave them consumer-owned power, public utilities
> commissions, rural electrification, and FERC.
>
> Ruth
>
>
>
> --
> Ruth F. Weiner
> ruthweiner@aol.com
> 505-856-5011
> (o)505-284-8406
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