Saturday, August 12, 2006
You and me and ConEd, let’s all get serious about electric outages
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
It cannot be argued that Con Edison is not responsive to calls for service. Just a fortnight ago, in the middle of their problem of
reelectrifying Queens, I called the Chairman's Office to tell them that their Tower clock on 14th Street had been non-functional for weeks, and to suggest that the
Queens situation plus the broken timepiece might make people think that Thomas Alva Edison's old company is losing control. They shuffled me to
Public Affairs, where an overwrought lady grumbled that they have a crisis on hand, but, voila, two days later the clock was back on.
Actually the call was to try to get a coherent story of what caused the Queens delay, in the hope of catching Eugene R. McGrath,
long-term Chairman of the Board, whom we also know as the affable spearhead of the old 14 Street /Union Square BID. But he and Kevin Burke the new CEO were otherwise occupied, as were all the PR underlings, and I never got the promised callback.
Meanwhile in Thursday, August 3, at the hot point of a three-day 100 –degree spell, a somewhat incoherent message from the NYC Dept. of Small Business Services, e-mailed by CB5, got me heated up enough to leave the office, pack our family and head north. It was to all BIDs and LDCs, to get a ConEdison message to all business owners, (requesting that) customers of ConEd in East Midtown disconnect al nonessential appliances and equipment until problems on electrical equipment can be resolved. It was repeated, for all residential and business customers between 40th and 14th Streets, to shut off any unused or unnecessary appliances. Con Edison was asking their largest customers in the area to reduce their electrical use.
Duane Reid and others along 3rd Avenue did close their doors, and lobbies turned off the lights, bless ‘em. Fortunately, NYC squeaked through, but the dangers are still there. We all know that the root causes are antiquated delivery systems, both long-distance and those in the suburbs (Manhattan is more up to date) and the neglect of the public’s needs on part of utility companies, unwilling to make large expenditures that would lowed stock prices and executive’s bonuses. This will go on, despite ConEd’s planning to spend $5.3B on upgrades over 3 years, with $1.2B on tap in 2006, exceeding the $1B in 2005, and well over the $483M in 2000. This is a long-term process, and there will be falloff and rising prices and all the customary crap. Real modernization and the change to use of renewable resources and improved use of non-renewable resources and reduction of coal-driven mercury in the air are even further away, with the Washington oilistas in denial of the evils of global warming and greenhouse gasses and the meltdown of the glaciers. That leaves it up to the American genius of improvisation and quick solutions. But the woods are not full of alternatives.
Efficient use of electricity is a first line of defense. Efficient buildings and air-conditioners can slash the loads that overheat Con Ed’s cables. Building plants nearby will cut loss in transfer of electricity. Sensors on the grid will pinpoint faulty cable segments and concentrate repairs to where they are needed most. This foofah of relying on consumer call-ins is baloney. I called in an outage in upstate NY and found that NYSE&G already knew the location of the downed cable, the count of households affected (973): they promised to fix it in 3 hours, and kept their promise.Demand response programs, available in NYS and most other states, offer financial rewards to large energy consumers for curtailing usage in peak periods. Thus, it is claimed that Macy’s Sherwood Hotels and NYU Medical Center have contributed electrical power worth usage in 100,000 homes, helping prevent a citywide blackout. This can be made part of national policy. The politicians’ answers are more towards pressing for the upgrades, for controls by Public Service Commission (who deregulated the public utilities in 1997, with subsequent loss of reliability of power service in NYC), for an independent audit of the Queens fiasco, and a rapid response system; also penalties (not pass-along).
All this is good and fine, but the most important thing for us people is to truly let it sink in that saving electricity will help each of us, individually. As individuals each of us is rich enough to waste, as Dick Cheney has proudly stated; but as members of a nation or planet, or as citizens of this country and this city we are not rich enough to afford it.SABINA, I KIND OF LIKE THAT SENTENCE, YOU MIGHT WANT TO CONSIDER HIGHLIGHTING IT OR PUTTING IT ON THE COVER But a general call not to waste energy is too non-specific, we need to know what direct steps each of us can take. Therefore I will quote form the down to earth advice from a local building’s super: to keep air conditioning on only in the rooms that you actually use, not to wash dishes or do laundry until late at night; to think before turning on all the lights on the panel: to hibernate or shut off computers even if it costs nothing to keep them on all night; and to remember that you are doing this for yourself, not for the system.
Wally Dobelis thanks the NYTimes, Assembly members Catherine Nolan and Michael N. Gianaris, Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute, Anjan Bose of Washington State U, Mike Gordon of Consumer Powerline, Internet resources and the unidentified super outside Mumbles.
It cannot be argued that Con Edison is not responsive to calls for service. Just a fortnight ago, in the middle of their problem of
reelectrifying Queens, I called the Chairman's Office to tell them that their Tower clock on 14th Street had been non-functional for weeks, and to suggest that the
Queens situation plus the broken timepiece might make people think that Thomas Alva Edison's old company is losing control. They shuffled me to
Public Affairs, where an overwrought lady grumbled that they have a crisis on hand, but, voila, two days later the clock was back on.
Actually the call was to try to get a coherent story of what caused the Queens delay, in the hope of catching Eugene R. McGrath,
long-term Chairman of the Board, whom we also know as the affable spearhead of the old 14 Street /Union Square BID. But he and Kevin Burke the new CEO were otherwise occupied, as were all the PR underlings, and I never got the promised callback.
Meanwhile in Thursday, August 3, at the hot point of a three-day 100 –degree spell, a somewhat incoherent message from the NYC Dept. of Small Business Services, e-mailed by CB5, got me heated up enough to leave the office, pack our family and head north. It was to all BIDs and LDCs, to get a ConEdison message to all business owners, (requesting that) customers of ConEd in East Midtown disconnect al nonessential appliances and equipment until problems on electrical equipment can be resolved. It was repeated, for all residential and business customers between 40th and 14th Streets, to shut off any unused or unnecessary appliances. Con Edison was asking their largest customers in the area to reduce their electrical use.
Duane Reid and others along 3rd Avenue did close their doors, and lobbies turned off the lights, bless ‘em. Fortunately, NYC squeaked through, but the dangers are still there. We all know that the root causes are antiquated delivery systems, both long-distance and those in the suburbs (Manhattan is more up to date) and the neglect of the public’s needs on part of utility companies, unwilling to make large expenditures that would lowed stock prices and executive’s bonuses. This will go on, despite ConEd’s planning to spend $5.3B on upgrades over 3 years, with $1.2B on tap in 2006, exceeding the $1B in 2005, and well over the $483M in 2000. This is a long-term process, and there will be falloff and rising prices and all the customary crap. Real modernization and the change to use of renewable resources and improved use of non-renewable resources and reduction of coal-driven mercury in the air are even further away, with the Washington oilistas in denial of the evils of global warming and greenhouse gasses and the meltdown of the glaciers. That leaves it up to the American genius of improvisation and quick solutions. But the woods are not full of alternatives.
Efficient use of electricity is a first line of defense. Efficient buildings and air-conditioners can slash the loads that overheat Con Ed’s cables. Building plants nearby will cut loss in transfer of electricity. Sensors on the grid will pinpoint faulty cable segments and concentrate repairs to where they are needed most. This foofah of relying on consumer call-ins is baloney. I called in an outage in upstate NY and found that NYSE&G already knew the location of the downed cable, the count of households affected (973): they promised to fix it in 3 hours, and kept their promise.Demand response programs, available in NYS and most other states, offer financial rewards to large energy consumers for curtailing usage in peak periods. Thus, it is claimed that Macy’s Sherwood Hotels and NYU Medical Center have contributed electrical power worth usage in 100,000 homes, helping prevent a citywide blackout. This can be made part of national policy. The politicians’ answers are more towards pressing for the upgrades, for controls by Public Service Commission (who deregulated the public utilities in 1997, with subsequent loss of reliability of power service in NYC), for an independent audit of the Queens fiasco, and a rapid response system; also penalties (not pass-along).
All this is good and fine, but the most important thing for us people is to truly let it sink in that saving electricity will help each of us, individually. As individuals each of us is rich enough to waste, as Dick Cheney has proudly stated; but as members of a nation or planet, or as citizens of this country and this city we are not rich enough to afford it.SABINA, I KIND OF LIKE THAT SENTENCE, YOU MIGHT WANT TO CONSIDER HIGHLIGHTING IT OR PUTTING IT ON THE COVER But a general call not to waste energy is too non-specific, we need to know what direct steps each of us can take. Therefore I will quote form the down to earth advice from a local building’s super: to keep air conditioning on only in the rooms that you actually use, not to wash dishes or do laundry until late at night; to think before turning on all the lights on the panel: to hibernate or shut off computers even if it costs nothing to keep them on all night; and to remember that you are doing this for yourself, not for the system.
Wally Dobelis thanks the NYTimes, Assembly members Catherine Nolan and Michael N. Gianaris, Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute, Anjan Bose of Washington State U, Mike Gordon of Consumer Powerline, Internet resources and the unidentified super outside Mumbles.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 11:29 AM 
