US power grid costs rise, but service slips

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-Excite

By JONATHAN FAHEY

NEW YORK (AP) - America's power grid is like an old car.

It gets the job done, even if its performance is slipping. But the repair bills go up every year and experts say only a major overhaul will reverse its decline.

An Associated Press analysis of utility spending and reliability nationwide found that electric customers are spending 43 percent more than they did in 2002 to build and maintain local electric infrastructure. Since then, power outages have remained infrequent; but when the lights do go out, it now takes longer to get them back on.

Neither the spending nor the reliability trends are dramatic on their own. But experts say the combination is revealing: it suggests that the extra money from electric customers isn't being spent wisely - or that utilities aren't investing nearly enough to upgrade fragile equipment that is increasingly threatened by major storms.

FULL story at link.


Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20130305/DA4R4A180.html

---

Chart shows the annual cost of distribution and the average length of outages per year

[sakabatou]

1. A lot of are infrastructure needs to be replaced/repaired.

[kentauros]

2. That's because the companies stopped "scheduled maintenance."

Now they just wait for things to break before it gets repaired or replaced.

[valerief]

4. They just wait for old gas lines to blow up neighborhoods now.

What do they care? No consequences. Beats paying union wage. They're bullshit they can't offshore it.

[bluedigger]

3. My provider is shifting costs to small consumers.

Even so, some residents have complained that their bills have gone up. The "facilities charge," or base rate charged to households regardless of use, rose from $19.50 to $30.73 on Jan. 1. Meanwhile the kilowatt per hour energy charge decreased by 15 percent. Based on information provided by Empire, charges should stay constant for customers with a monthly consumption of 672 kilowatt hours. Use less than that threshold, and your bill rises. Use more, and it falls.
http://www.cortezjournal.com/article/20130305/NEWS01/130309927/Empire-Electric-files-complaint-against-Tri-State

[Lordquinton]

5. So they spend years getting people to cut down on power usage

then institute a plan that will make lower power consumption more costly.

These corps belong in jail, they manufactured a power crisis here in California and used it to install a governor in a sham election, fortunately they didn't get the one they wanted...


Nationalise the power, and fight back against the bids for water, only way to keep this place going.