blizzard, tornado, heat wave, hurricane or some other severe event, people with generators greatly cut the misery. With increasing erratic weather and a harsh winter coming, having a generator should be everyone's top priority. If you don't know how to pick, maintain and use a generator, see this information.

November 12, 208

By Mark Williams

AP

PHOENIX — From the Gulf Coast to Ohio, the only thing louder than the howling winds from hurricanes this year were the complaints about how long it took to get the lights back on.

Photo: Power lines lie across a road on the Bolivar Peninsula on Sept. 15, 2008, near High Island, Texas. The only thing louder than the howling winds from hurricanes this year were the complaints about how long it took to get the lights back on. (File photo by Tony Gutierrez, AP)

As an extraordinarily violent hurricane season comes to a close, utilities again weigh the costs, and the ensuing price hikes, of armoring power lines.

"If the mother nature paradigm has shifted and it's going to cost us $80 (million) to $150 million every three years that's a different financial model," said Mike Madison, president and chief executive of Cleco Corp., based in Pineville, La. Madison spoke at the annual meeting of the Edison Electric Institute in Phoenix Tuesday.

Gustav knocked out power to 90% of his 273,000 customers in September.

Hurricanes Gustav and Ike combined to knock out power to nearly 8 million homes and businesses over summer, some for as long as two weeks. Many who had power restored after Gustav roared through Louisiana, lost it again when Ike plowed into the Texas coast.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who heard plenty of complaints from voters after Gustav hit on Labor Day, went after the utilities.

"One of the things that absolutely has to be worked out is what more could be done to harden the lines and make the distribution system more safe for future storms," he said.

But political leaders don't have to sell the cost of armoring the nation's power grid, which would inevitably show up on utility bills.

Putting lines underground would cost about $1 million a mile — 10 times the cost of overhead lines, according to an Edison Electric study.

And faith in even those fortifications were doused by hurricanes Ivan and Katrina.

But in the past three years, after hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Gustav an Ike did unprecedented damage to the nation's power infrastructure, there remains the question of whether that is a cost consumers must bear.

Cleco spent $25 million on storm damage in 2002, it's worst year in many.

Katrina and Rita cost Cleco more than $100 million — Gustav this year cost it $85 million.

While utilities have hardened systems to better withstand winds and flying debris, building a hurricane-proof system is not feasible, experts say.

"Could one be built? Perhaps, but at an enormous cost," said Richard Lordan, technology director for power delivery for the Electric Power Research Institute.

In the 13 years prior a 2006 study by the Edison Electric Institute, about half of all capital expenditures by U.S. investor-owned utilities for new transmission and distribution wires have been for underground wires. Still, about 70% of the nation's distribution system has been built with overhead lines.

Research has shown that there are fewer outages in areas where there are underground lines, and underground lines can make sense in new residential areas or densely populated areas such as New York City.

But when outages do occur, they tend to last longer because finding and fixing the problem is more difficult.

The Edison study also found, however, that utility rates would skyrocket between 80% and 125%.

That would be a hard sell to consumers, who are already footing the bill for climbing energy and commodity costs. Those costs are projected to increase by 9.5% in 2009, according to the Energy Information Administration.

"It would be a really scary number at the worst possible time," Edison Electric spokesman Jim Owen said.

After an ice storm knocked out power to nearly 2 million customers in North Carolina in December 2002, the state's utilities commission estimated it would take 25 years for the state's three investor-owned utilities to put their overhead distribution lines underground at a cost of $41 billion. In Florida, the cost was $94 billion.

Utilities operating in the most hurricane-prone regions, however, know that a storm's capacity for destruction can lay waste to even the most extensive fortifications.

Utility giant Entergy Corp., which recorded its second largest number of outages ever during Gustav, says that in eastern New Orleans, consumers lost power for weeks when Katrina flooded its buried lines.

Its underground power lines were uncovered and destroyed by Hurricane Ivan in 2004.

And even if underground lines survive a hurricane, the above ground transmission lines that feed power to the underground lines remain vulnerable.

"Putting lines underground is not the magic bullet people think it is," said Cherie Jacobs, a spokeswoman for Progress Energy Florida.

Jacobs said Progress is investing $90 million to harden its system by strengthening transmission and distribution lines.

In Florida, regulators are studying the progression of destruction during hurricanes, trying to learn what failed, why, and at what point in the storm.

"Over time, we went to develop policies to help strengthen the weak points," said Kirsten Olsen, spokeswoman for the Florida Public Service Commission.

But the discussion always returns to cost and providing a reliable system at the lowest price for customers.

"It becomes hard to put an additional cost on them even if strengthens the grid," Olsen said.

http://www.usatoday.com/weather/storms/hurricanes/2008-11-11-hurricanes-utilities_N.htm

www.standeyo.com/NEWS/08_Sci_Tech/081112.utilities.battered.2008.html