Posted on 04/26/2012 6:27:12 PM PDT by matt04
Although lawmakers wanted information on what is wrong with New England's aging electric power grid, they heard from a Connecticut utility Thursday about what that utility is doing right.
Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said he called for the hearing because of the electricity outages in New England last year caused by bad weather and an emerging pattern in the United States of more frequent and stronger storms.
"We know that there will be another storm that will knock down our power lines," Bingaman said.
Introduced by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., to the panel, John Bilda, general manager of Norwich Public Utilities, said that while the rest of New England was in the dark in the wake of Tropical Storm Irene and after last fall's surprise snowstorm, his customers had electricity.
Bilda said planning, pruning of trees that could take down power lines and a nimble response to outages were the reasons for his utility's success.
About 800,000 Connecticut residents were out of power after Irene swept through the state last year, but Norwich Public Utilities was able to restore electricity to all of its customers within 48 hours.
Yet, Bilda said, ISO-New England, which has more than 6 million customers in the Northeast, is impeding the expansion of Norwich Public Utilities.
"We are facing regulatory hurdles at ISO-New England that are impacting our ability to bring new assets online and to preserve existing ones," Bilda said.
(Excerpt) Read more at ctmirror.org ...
Gee!! What happens when a hurricane or tornado hits those windmills and Solar panels.
Talk about power outages.
We had an ice storm last winter that put the lights out for ~800k users for up to 96 hours. None of it was aging infrastructure - all of it was unprecedented ice bringing down trees onto the lines.
I got 2 horses on a backup treadmill generator.
It outputs 2 horsepower of 2 x 746 = 1.492 Kw of electricity.
yes trees and power lines don’t mix ,you want trees go live in the deep woods
Yeah, I’m sure congress can fix it!
Blumenthal was elected by the SO CONN libs who fight environmentalist bs!
Cut down the damn trees and eventually put the cables underground!
But if you are painfully stupid/liberal and still don’t get it ... buy a g.d. generator!
I had my whole neighborhood in and out, warm and fed, lived through too many NE blackouts and decided the investment was worth it!
D’oh!
They can scrape the endangered but frozen spotted owl off the windmill blades..
How about sticking your nose out of our lives Congress!
Yeah why is it that the only leftard approved energy would be destroyed by weather that their religion says is worsening? Windmills have to shut down in storms and panels are easily damaged.
It had to do with the fact that utility companies, in an effort to boost their bottom line, discontinued the proactive process of trimming trees and limbs from the power lines.
When I was younger, a common sight in my neighborhood were tree crews, hired by the power companies, trimming trees and branches that were anywhere close to the power lines. The result was that power losses were rare and quickly restored when they did happen because any damage was localized and easy for crews to respond to in a timely manner.
And yes, we had big storms back then too. Hurricane Gloria in 1985, the great Blizzard of 1978, just to name a couple. Did not lose power during those powerful storms. Yet now I lose power pretty much every time we have a major wind or an ice storm.
New England should outlaw all carbon and nuclear based electricity and subsist only on solar and wind.
It’s only right to honor Gaia and the memory of Ted Kennedy.
...while the rest of New England was in the dark in the wake of Tropical Storm Irene and after last fall's surprise snowstorm......Obama did nothing, because he hates white people.
Kennedy and Kerry fought Cape Cod Wind like rabid dogs!
FatHead Ted finally went away and the ballless Kerry gave into mini Obama ( DeValue Patrick) Gov D MA ... former CHICAGOAN and David Axelrod’s first Manchurian candidate.....
It was a NIMBY issue but Teddy passed and now they are all going to make a boatload of money killing birds with rusted turbines.
Aren’t Liberals just the smartest people in the room?
Jeff Bingaman, you lie...
Bingaman... what a piece of work! Where were you on Congressional hearings when your constituents in NM had their gas turned OFF for no discernible reason in the middle of a winter storm last year?
Yeah LOL I knew about the Kennedys and “Cape Wind” - just being sarcastic.
Putting turbines out in the water eliminates one of the big advantages - collecting the shredded poultry downstream to feed the starving victims of the Baraqqi Depression.
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