Two days after tropical storm Isaias uprooted trees and cut power to thousands of Connecticut residents, workers from Asplundh Construction Company repaired the electric wires on Rocky Mountain Avenue. | Photography: Ryan Caron King | CT Public Broadcasting
       On August 4, as the power outage of tropical storm Isaias piled up in every community in Connecticut, the accusations began. Utilities are considered unprepared, leading critics to suggest that they should pay for everything from broken telephone poles to spoiled food.
       However, even if Eversource and United Illuminating send a group of maintenance personnel, as long as they are ready to leave under safe conditions, it is very likely that all these motivations will still disappear. Energy experts say it can be said that the question Isaiah begs for is not who should be blamed and how to punish them, but “how do we keep the lights on?”
       To get the answer, you may not only need the current practical villain, but also the in-depth thinking of state government officials, legislators, advocates and residents themselves. These people have been focusing on short-term costs and electricity bills for many years, rather than long-term long-term solutions. , Which may eventually reduce these ratios and provide greater resilience.
       The result is that nearly a decade after Tropical Storm Irene first demonstrated the vulnerability of Connecticut’s transmission system (which has played a role to varying degrees since then), the state’s first line of defense is usually old-fashioned Tree pruning.
       The complex high-tech hardware and modern principles behind the latest grid resilience (not even considered in rare cases) were largely rejected because they were too costly.
       However, after talking to experts, you will hear a lot of ideas about technology upgrades and grid system restructuring, including how to change the regulatory paradigm so that utility companies can use more modern methods to complete their work. However, to do this, we need to study the mysterious and complex energy world and its regulation in depth; the political will to solve this problem is already in short supply; of course there is money
       It may also be necessary to fully realize that not everything related to operating a power system is related to tariffs.
       ”It’s not just a telephone pole. It lost business. Without air conditioning, this is the people’s life.” said Lisa Frantzis, who understands the risks of long-term power outages. As the senior managing director of the advanced energy economy of the industry association dedicated to modern energy solutions, Frantzis is the first to work on the business model and regulatory reform of the 21st century power grid.
       Her family owns the Quassy amusement park in Middlebury, which has a history of more than a century. This was a huge blow to them, including food loss and other collateral damage, and it also happened on top of COVID, which forced Quassy to shut down for several months. After the final reopening, the capacity was only 25%.
       As a member of Quassy’s board of directors, Frantzis began to look for ways to make the park more resilient, but as an expert, she was a lot of people who expressed the need to completely change the utility business model.
       Since April 2019, PURA Public Utilities Regulatory Authority Chairman Marissa Gillett said: “This is definitely an hour’s question. I am definitely not trying to guess what the regulators did after the hurricane in 2011. Not here, they are different. The facts are available to choose from.”
       Yes, the trees have been trimmed. However, after 2011, the priorities and the categories that need to be paid have not changed. So we are here again.
       Utilities do what they are allowed to do. If you want to do things differently, then you must change the regulatory environment. “Said Daniel Bresette, executive director of the Institute of Environment and Energy.
       This means providing the right incentives, creating ways to make long-term investments, and thinking about customer service in different ways.
       He said: “Utility does not necessarily determine what it does.” Regulators must catch up. These utilities may have to look carefully in the mirror and then say: “Well, how can we do better? How can we better prepare? Advocates of climate and clean energy, legislators have their roles.”
       For starters, even calling Eversource and UI “utilities” is outdated. They are distribution companies or EDCs, which is what PURA, the agency that oversees them, calls them.
       It has been twenty years since the company was allowed to own its own power generation equipment (power plant). However, in recent years, both have been allowed to have a small amount of clean generation, and UI has done it. Although both companies have established partnerships with offshore wind power companies, Eversource has yet to blur this line.
       It looks like you are paying for them, but you are not. This is a straight-through fee, and neither company has profited from it.
       On August 7, a few days after tropical storm Isaiah, Eversource’s car stopped on a road that was blocked by a fallen tree.
       Their purpose of making money is to provide you with electricity: they actually transmit electricity from a power plant and distribute it to your home or office. These include wires, poles, switches, and various hardware and equipment for maintenance and repair.
       The company is “regulated” on all these items; they go to PURA twice a year to set rates on January 1st and July 1st in order to obtain reimbursement. It was this July 1 tax rate, and the sharp increase during the economic collapse caused by the pandemic, that caused the initial outrage of utilities before Isaias was hit. This anger only intensifies when there is a power failure.
       This “business cost” model began to appear in the middle of the 20th century and supports the grid model that has existed since Thomas Edison invented the grid model at the end of the 19th century. In Connecticut, the operation of public utilities can be traced back to 1881.
       Although there is a certain amount of leeway, PURA has not established rules for managing utilities. It ensures that the utility or EDC follows the rules. These rules are mainly formulated by the legislature.
       Given its complexity, the limited time available to part-time legislators, and the extensive lobbying by members of the Energy and Technology Committee, legislators usually do not know the details of energy policy very well.
       As a result, the Connecticut legislature focused on electricity bills instead of addressing system reforms that required up-front funding, but in the long run, this would produce a more reliable power supply and save money.
       Senator Norman Needleman of D-Essex was immediately pushed to the position of co-chair after he took office in the Legislative Yuan. He readily admitted: “I am not an energy expert after serving as the chairman of the Energy Committee for a year.”
       The co-chair of the House of Representatives, David Arconti of D-Danbury also served as the first chairman of the committee. He did not call back.
       From left is Senator Paul Formica of the Energy and Technology Committee, Congressman David Arconti and Senator Norm Needleman.
       To summarize: the rules retained by utilities largely support the old business model that has been criticized since Irene in 2011, with few changes to show all complaints.
       However, in 2017, a series of proposals aimed at modernizing the grid (or grid mod for short) were proposed, which accelerated the pace last year. Gillett said that if she wants to, she is willing to force the utility to make the changes she thinks the grid mod needs.
       Gillette said: “I have been thinking about this, hoping that it may be an inflection point, or a moment, or you want to characterize it so that we can pay more attention to modernization.”
       Katie Dykes started the grid transformation before assuming the chairmanship of PURA, and later became the commissioner of the Ned Lamont State Government Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. She said that if you want to modernize the grid, you need to adjust many components.
       She said: “There are many different solutions.” “What we need to do is define the goal. Then let the utility take responsibility to find the most effective way.”
       Outside Eversource on August 5: From left, Katie Dykes, Governor Ned Lamont and Marissa Gillett. DEEP Commissioner Dykes is at the microphone.
       In addition to the full penalties for Eversource and UI, it seems that the concept that has emerged is replacing the business cost model of returning capital investment (you build a new pole, and we will use performance to return you) based on model. It will set all the metrics that a utility company must meet to get paid-from energy efficiency to environmental targets to storm resilience and reliability.
       In essence, performance-based models will better encompass future investments in changing technologies and conditions (such as those triggered by climate change). Experts point out that many possibilities provide tremendous economic development opportunities.
       Janet Gail Besser, managing director of the Smart Power Alliance (SEPA), a non-profit organization focused on carbon-free energy systems, said that first a cost-benefit analysis must be conducted, focusing on what tools the regulator needs to evaluate Public utility proposal. Besser knows the situation in Connecticut well and had been following it for many years before she assumed the position of the Northeast Clean Energy Council.
       She said: “It’s important to understand how utilities respond to incentives within a regulatory framework.” “You also want a regulatory framework to support innovation and experimentation. Utilities need to be given “can do this.” Try it-if It doesn’t work, and you won’t be frustrated by it.”
       She said that new technologies need to be integrated into the system in a continuously adapted way. “You must think creatively, and you must think about it for a long time.”
       SEPA’s “refurbishment plan” has been studying all these issues and has provided a blueprint for how to solve them.
       Gillett of PURA has been considering the same idea when dealing with grid mods. But she wanted to put things logically. This probably means that the last part will be a new rate structure designed to incentivize all grid module components that have appeared before.
       She said: “The rate structure that I inherited when I came to Connecticut (and I have always been very aware of it) requires urgent, eager changes.” “In this state, we lack the most basic indicators. This kind of performance-based Evaluation dialogue-great. But I tell everyone that I inherited a system that doesn’t even have the foundation.”
       She was referring to a type of advanced metering, also known as smart metering, which allows utility companies to immediately understand the status of each customer. Most of the UI is in place, but Eversource has just submitted its plan to PURA, so there is still a long way to go.
       Marissa Gillett (Marissa Gillett) is the chairman of the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority. She assumed the position last year and made it clear that she is not afraid to undertake public utilities.
       A key question is whether legislation will be the most effective way to formulate regulations to help PURA enforce its use by utilities.
       Eversource spokesperson Mitch Gross said: “We welcome and are willing to study any suggestions that will bring more powerful electrical systems to our customers.” “We have developed a performance-based regulatory program in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Future trends will remain unchanged.”
       He pointed out that in addition to advanced metering, the company has also proposed systems for commercial and residential battery storage and electric vehicle charging.
       Gillette said: “Considering Eversource and the army of lobbyists they hired with UI, when legislation involving complex issues such as interest rate setting becomes legislation, I am worried that they will be inadvertently covered up,” “So I have always We encourage us to try to solve this problem through our own organic process.”
       To be clear, there is no utility model based solely on performance in the United States. Some of these procedures are currently being tried-mainly related to energy efficiency. The REV plan New York State’s “Reform Energy Vision” is the most famous. The Rocky Mountain Institute recently reported on how this model works.
       There are many ideas and technologies aimed at pushing public utilities into a new era. However, it seems that every time a storm causes serious damage to Connecticut’s power lines, the subconscious reaction is to come up with old ideas that conceal them.
       In 2011, after Irene (Irene) attacked, but before the devastating snowstorm in October, the northern part of the state was out of power for more than a week. People studied underground engineering (often called underground engineering) and considered the cost Too high. Especially in the case of existing lines.
       The conversation is back-especially after Isais eliminated a lot of water, wastewater and pumping station systems. FEMA has reported more than three dozen tap water systems. DEEP reports that 33 of the 89 municipal wastewater treatment plants it supervises are in standby mode. One of them cannot operate after its emergency generator runs out of fuel, and the other six provide only partial treatment. Of the 1,080 pumping stations, 275 are out of power or are running on standby generators.
       For treatment plants and other key buildings, strategic underground seems to be the new mantra. Considering the number of line replacements in the past decade, the cost argument has begun to lose some momentum, even according to the old rule of thumb, laying existing lines underground may cost as much as $1 million. The same is true of an old argument that finding underground problems is much more difficult than finding problems on overhead lines. There are communication technologies that can be concealed by lines that automatically detect problems.
       ”This is the discussion we should have,” said Brenda Kupschick, the first selected woman in Fairfield’s Republican Party. 67% of Fairfield customers (all in the UI area) lost power in Isaias. Kupchick served in the legislature during the 2011 storm and served on the Energy Commission for one term. She said: “You will look back and see a lot of technical information.”
       Her views on whether some potentially expensive fixes should be considered have changed. “This will happen again and again. The legislature needs to study this,” she said. “We can’t just do the same thing. Now, I’m actually running a small town-out of power for a week-everything has stopped.”
       R-East Lyme Senator Paul Formica (Paul Formica), a ranking member of the Energy Commission, reiterated the question of “who pays” and pointed out the time factor: “The current plan will take 20 years,” he said.
       However, if any major modernization is to begin after Irene or Sandy in 2012, it will now be half done. In fact, now, with the development of new areas, many municipalities place underground pipelines underground, but unless redundancy is established in the system, if the pipeline to the underground pipeline fails, they still have the risk of power failure .
       However, there are other technologies that can help keep power on and are considered part of the performance-based grid model. A microgrid is a method of isolating an area so that it can remain energized even if a wider grid fails. A microgrid can also act as a decentralized component of a larger grid-even if there is no power outage, it also helps distribute power.
       Other technologies that provide flexibility and metrics for utility performance models are improved interconnection systems that allow utilities to move power in the system. Eversource and UI can now perform some of these operations, but if advanced measurements are not taken, it will be limited.
       Once the metering is done, a variety of flexibility can be achieved, including optimizing the distribution of electricity from places that do not consume large amounts of electricity to places that require electricity during normal operation. Grid integration with buildings is another tool-and a way to adjust the load and save costs.
       One of the biggest benefits involves increasing the amount of formally called distributed energy (DER), which usually comes in the form of solar cells on solar roofs. During the period of panel high-power generation and low household power consumption, utility companies will be able to redistribute electricity more efficiently.
       These are all components of non-wired alternative products that are also energy efficient-a way to consume less power and optimize available power. The key will be a regulatory structure that incentivizes the “multiplier with less effort” paradigm of utilities, because they have fewer benefits compared to the current business cost system.
       In the upcoming old utility models, the most fundamental potential change is the entry of third-party operations-advanced energy economy has already studied this. The utility builds the platform, but the third party provides the software needed to run them and the upgrades needed to improve the technology. Those third parties pay, not the utility or its customers.
       AEE’s Frantzis said: “We have seen this in large data centers-Microsoft and Facebook in the world, they can’t afford the trouble of grid collapse.” “They are taking control of their power-using their own grid resilience.”
       She said: “I am really worried that simply increasing the number of poles and wires without integrating some of these advances may not be the best choice.” “Not doing their cost-maintaining the status quo-will have major consequences.”
       Experts say that in accordance with the suggestion of U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (Richard Blumenthal), the split of Eversource, although technically legal and feasible under very special circumstances, includes multiple layers. Approval, this will take a long time and will cost a lot of money. Finally, you have moved the same old grid to the new owner.
       Community choice aggregation (the idea of ​​a community uniting to buy cleaner and cheaper power supplies) will not achieve better power distribution, because it is related to purchasing power, not distributing power. You can have the cleanest and cheapest power supply in the state, but if the transmission system fails, you will be in the dark like everyone else.
       But the biggest idea is to switch to municipal utilities, which is rare in Connecticut. Wallingford is one of them. At the peak of Isaias, 16% of customers are out at any time. According to Tony Buccheri, general manager of the Wallingford Electricity Department, within 48 hours, this ratio dropped to less than 2%, and everyone returned at 8:30 pm on Saturday (5 days later) .
       D-Westport Representative Jonathan Steinberg is one of Hartford’s few legislators who understands complex energy policies.
       Buccheri points out that Wallingford’s overhead lines use a more durable system called Hendrix isolated cables, rather than the traditional crossarm brackets you see on most utility poles. And the new community is required to place electrical wires underground. However, he said it is difficult to get everything underground due to all underground traffic congestion caused by sewers, water and natural gas. There was no other way for Wallingford.
       ”This is how it has existed for 121 years. For the municipalities to do this immediately, they have to cooperate with Eversource or UI, buy its assets, and then form a power company.” “They will lose the taxes paid by the utility. They will The system will have to be owned, operated and maintained. It was awesome to do 120 years ago.”
       Jonathan Steinberg, a permanent member of the Energy Commission and Representative of D-Westport, said: “This is an opportunity to discuss major amendments. This should have happened a long time ago.” The most detailed technical knowledge of the subject.
       Steinberg hopes to find new incentives and compensation models for utilities, smart meters for each home, smart transformers, the underground of some major distribution lines, and more true microgrids. However, if there is a historical record, future legislative actions will involve slow, slow steps, and then special committees and studies. The trees will be pruned and the storm will go.
       He said in an interview last week: “At the PURA hearing and the E&T hearing, everyone will wave their fists and swear revenge.” Steinberg was right: at the PURA hearing on Monday, Eversource faced the violent roar of elected officials. Energy and Technology Commission Forum 10:30 this morning
       However, DEEP Commissioner Dykes is not worried that punishment will be the focus. She said: “I am not worried about this.” “In the PURA process, a lot of efforts have been made and focus on the modern power grid. I am not worried that the focus will be reduced.”
       She said: “But we need to make sure that there is no subconscious reaction.” “During this period, what can we do to ensure that utilities will not start to rebuild in response to the storm in a way that we will not continue to support progress?”
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       Jan Ellen Spiegel Jan won awards for his coverage of energy, environment, and food and agriculture. In 2013, she won the Knight Journalism Scholarship on Energy and Climate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is the former editor of Hartford Courant and is responsible for handling national politics, including the controversial 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. As a freelance journalist, her story appeared in The New York Times, Boston Globe and other places. She worked as an editor for the Gazette in Colorado Springs, and worked as a TV and radio producer for CBS News and CNN in New York and the broadcast market in Boston for more than 20 years. She graduated from the University of Michigan and took a graduate film course at Boston University.