When the lights went out across large swaths of Cambridge just as Thursday’s workday ended, it was the latest in a string of outages caused by NStar equipment failures this year, renewing questions about the Boston utility’s ability to keep the power on.
The outage only lasted two hours after a piece of equipment called a relay erroneously cut power to a transmission line, but it knocked out electricity at Harvard University and MIT, left traffic and street lights dark during rush hour, and played havoc with Red Line trains packed with commuters. Roughly 19,000 customers were affected.
Comments
"David Cash, a commissioner with the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities, said [… that] NStar’s service quality has been no worse than other utilities" Really??? That's because DPU includes in its comparisons dysfunctional utilities like the Long Island Power Authority or Connecticut Light & Power, but NO municipal utility.
The chart at http://tinyurl.com/co8n3h6, explained at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lex-electric/message/14, raises critical questions the Department of Public Utilities - or the Boston Globe - should ask NStar, namely:
Why is spacer cable used so differently, by municipal utilities on 55% of their lines but by NStar on only 10% of its lines?
When will NStar get to 55%, like municipal utilities?
Email lex-electric-subscribe@yahoogroups.com to join the new email list-serve http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lex-electric created to discuss electricity distribution in Massachusetts.
Patrick Mehr
Massachusetts Alliance for Municipal Electric Choice
http://massmunichoice.org
Coakley is an opportunist!!
How so? Seems like investigating something like this is exactly what she should be doing.
We need Mayor Menino to drive up and fix this! Man, I miss that guy! Get well, Mr. Mayor!