Power Outages: How Much Is ComEd's Fault?

By Samantha Abernethy in News on Jul 31, 2011 7:00PM

There have been a hell of a lot of strong storms this summer, so you've probably at least seen your lights flicker, if not go out completely. Sometimes it's a minor inconvenience, and the power is back before the milk can spoil. But many people have had to wait days for ComEd to turn their power back on, and those in the suburbs claim they have to wait longer than those in the city. After the July 11 storm, 870,000 were without power for as long as a week. Of course ComEd wasn't out there cutting power lines just for fun. They're as much a victim of poor weather as anyone. Or maybe ComEd is actually just a crappy utility company?

Counting out those storms, ComEd still doesn't seem to be performing quite well. The company was recently ranked 112th out of 124 utility companies in a customer satisfaction survey by JD Power and Associates. ComEd is the second worst in the Midwest. ComEd, predictably, ignored the news and patted itself on the back Saturday:

“ComEd’s reliability is ranked in the top quartile among other comparable utilities,” Tabrina Davis, the spokeswoman, wrote in an emailed statement to the Tribune. “Our reliability performance in 2010 was strong - customers experienced 39 percent fewer interruptions and power was restored 34 percent faster than 1998.”

The Sun-Times analyzed ComEd's performance, excluding storm days, and found that ComEd gives heavy preference to its city customers over the suburban ones, but if you live downtown you're even better off. The Sun-Times writes, "South and West-siders also waited in the dark longer. Outages in Streeterville were typically fixed six times faster than power cuts in Little Village." ComEd suggests that its proposed "smart grid" system will fix those outages.

The latest storm-related outages come as ComEd tries to push through a controversial bill it says will secure funding for an upgraded “smart grid” that will prevent and shorten outages but which critics, including the Illinois attorney general’s office, say will guarantee it huge profits while weakening reliability standards for years to come.

Under the current legislation, ComEd is required to prove its reliability performance to regulators before winning rate hikes, whereas under the bill the balance of power would shift so that regulators seeking to prevent a price hike would have to show that ComEd has failed to meet reliability standards, according to Illinois Commerce Commission executive director Tim Anderson.

A representative from the Illinois Attorney General's office said it best, “The smart grid might be the best thing ever, but what happens if it’s not? ComEd will still get double -digit profits.”