CENTS & SENSIBILITY California, here we come

Luther Turmelle, Register Business Editor	April 29, 2002

For the past two years, the state of California has been held up as an example of energy policy gone awry.

Blackouts and soaring energy prices in California last year left the state the object of national ridicule or sympathy, depending upon who was doing the talking. But if our own utility officials are to be believed, consumers in southwestern Connecticut may be saying, "California, here we come."

Our friends in California have every reason to be chuckling at the prospect of this part of Connecticut facing the specter of controlled blackouts this summer.

Believe it or not, in some political and regulatory circles, the Nutmeg State is regarded as having its act together when it comes to energy issues.

Nancy Vogel, a Los Angeles Times reporter who covered California's energy debacle first hand, put it this way when I met her at a journalism conference last fall: "Everyone says you guys (Connecticut) got it right."

Yeah, right. If that's true, then how come ISO-New England — the organization that operates the power grid in our region — keeps insisting that only liberal doses of conservation will save us from blackouts this summer?

ISO-New England is doing its best to create a sense of urgency in these parts about the need to conserve and the need to upgrade electric transmission lines into this part of the state. But my question is why wasn't the organization — and others like it — sounding the alarm about the need to upgrade transmission lines years ago?

Stephen Whitley, ISO-New England's chief operating officer, said nothing about our aging power network when he went before an audience of Connecticut business leaders on April 3, 2001 in Farmington.

Neither did any of the other speakers who appeared on the dais that day, including Donald Downes, chairman of the state Department of Public Utility Control.

Whitley's excuse for ISO-New England's failure to warn of these problems last summer is that his organization had just started a long-term transmission planning study at the time, at the behest of federal energy regulators.

"We do know what the problem is now and we're trying to do something about it," Whitley said last week.

But how could the condition of New England's electric grid come as that much of a surprise to Whitley?

Hot weather and heavy electric usage during July 1999 created blackout at New Haven's Bella Vista senior citizen complex. A few weeks after the incident, United Illuminating Co. Anthony Vallillo promised to address the program by investing in upgrades into the company's distribution network.

To be fair to Whitley and ISO-New England, there's plenty of blame to go round in this matter.

Veteran utility industry observers in the state say that during the late 1970s, Connecticut Light & Power got Siting Council approval to make improvements to the distribution network. But the improvements supposedly were never made.

That's what makes this whole "crisis mentality" seem so disingenuous.

Is Connecticut about to become energy quagmire, the California of 2002? Time will tell, but if it does, it will be because of lack of leadership and vision, not because the public is unwilling to conserve energy.

Business Editor Luther Turmelle's column appears weekly. He can be reached at lturmelle@nhregister.com or at 789-5751.