Why can't Maryland get rid of Pepco?

[Anonymous]

Pepco ranks at the very bottom of the national rankings for reliability and customer satisfaction. Its basically the worst and most hated utility distribution company in the entire country. They have been fined for letting the system decay avoiding investing in tree trimming, not replacing equipment, and not installing more weather resistant cables/equipment and instead investing heavily in marketing and political contributions. Studies have shown that the tree cover in this area is not higher than other areas with more reliable service. Ironically, Pepco is the one that fails to maintain tree trimming anyway. Many areas with far higher reliability and outage response also have above ground cable.

They are on the airwaves now congratulating themselves of being ahead of goals by restoring some customers before Friday??? Are you kidding me? This will be their new approach. Whenever there is an outage they will self proclaim a ridiculously long, unacceptable in any other part of the country, and completely padded target goal where they can save the most money. They will then claim success. I'm developing a project plan for work right now. The project needs to be complete in six months and we'll have to apply resources to reach this time frame. I think I will just announce that the project will be done in five years. This way we will not have to spend hardly any money on it. I should be able to finish it in 4 years so I will declare success.

Since Pepco is a monopoly, consumers have no choice. I just do not understand why the state of MD can not shut them down and give the business to a different company.

[Anonymous]

I agree with every word you wrote. I don't have any answers however.

I don't understand why, year after year, we (affluent, educated, informed) Pepco customers tolerate this. Every single year we have these outages (often 2 or more times a year), every single year we suffer, throw away food, lose valuable time. Businesses lose money and stock (our local grocery store had to throw out virtually everything - covered by insurance of course but that cost makes its way to the consumer). The same thing happens, the same outrage ensues, every.single.year.

And yet, nothing changes.

My view is that this is not different from e.g. agribusiness and the FDA. Food business is not well-regulated because the regulating body/government is in the pockets of the business thanks to PACs, lobbying, etc. Pepco, like agribusiness, can do as it like$ while the legislature puts on the show of slapping it with (meaningless/small) fines and displaying outrage. Then some time passes after the storm, Pepco continues to rake in profits, people settle down (memories are short), then another storm hits. Wash, rinse, repeat.

I am 51yo and have lived in major cities all over the world (and their suburbs too): New York, Boston, Madrid, London, Chicago. Never, not once, did I experience anything like these outages before moving here ten years ago.

It is outrageous, crazy. But I don't know what the answer is. I do know that it contributes to my overall dissatisfaction with the overall quality of life here in MoCo. Every summer I dread these storms and outages, every single summer.

[Anonymous]

I agree, it is a nightmare!!

[Anonymous]

Another family without power still here (fairly new MOCO residents). This has been incredibly disruptive and expensive. So what can we do?

[Anonymous]

Write to the Public Service Commission, your Council members, Ike, O'Malley, and your State Senators and Delegates.

[Anonymous]

I know several young couples who moved out of DC to the burbs to start their families and specifically stayed away from MoCo due to the power issues.

What do our elected officials think this does to our national image when it comes to attracting businesses?

[Anonymous]

The Post had an article about Pepco and how it became so messed up. True to Post fashion, the article wasn't well-researched, and it had no teeth. How is that possible - I mean there is so much material there.

[Anonymous]

Is there any legal action that citizens can take? Pepco donates heavily to both sides of the political camps so there is no way to go as a voter to get rid of them. I have never voted against my party but I would if the candidate legitimately would get rid of Pepco.

[Anonymous]

I'm sure they are not the best, but isn't this more the fault of mother nature than the power company?

it does take a certain number of days to repair hundreds of down lines and damaged transformers, right?

[Anonymous]

I'm sure they are not the best, but isn't this more the fault of mother nature than the power company? it does take a certain number of days to repair hundreds of down lines and damaged transformers, right?

No, Pepco has a responsibility to upgrade its equipment to use modern cables and components that are more resistant to weather related problems. Pepco also has a responsibility to trim trees so that there are fewer outages when storms do hit. A number of households and neighborhoods lose power even though their upstream lines are fine because Pepco has old equipment that trips with downstream breaks. A few years ago, Pepco took a lot of heat for constant outages and they reluctantly went out to trim trees. The storms the following year were the same but fewer outages. However, Pepco has not been back since to proactively trim trees, most has grown back and guess what the areas that could have been trimmed knocked down wires.

The storm didn't just target areas served by Pepco yet Pepco areas have many, many more outages. This is a result of Pepco's poor service. Pepco response is also very delayed, poorly organized and done to spend the least amount of money to resolve the outages. I'm sure that our outage will end up in their databanks as being much shorter than reality. Pepco has a habit of cleaning an outage when power is still out. Residents need to realize when they do this and call back to report an outage. Pepco gets to record that they were only out for a shorter period of time. If residents do not call back in to report it is still out, Pepco takes credit for restoring their power earlier even though they did not.

[Anonymous]

Another PEPCO customer still without power, information or any repair crews in sight. Here is an interesting article:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/07/outage-outrage-the-politics-of-electricity/259314/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I'm sure they are not the best, but isn't this more the fault of mother nature than the power company? it does take a certain number of days to repair hundreds of down lines and damaged transformers, right?

No, Pepco has a responsibility to upgrade its equipment to use modern cables and components that are more resistant to weather related problems. Pepco also has a responsibility to trim trees so that there are fewer outages when storms do hit. A number of households and neighborhoods lose power even though their upstream lines are fine because Pepco has old equipment that trips with downstream breaks. A few years ago, Pepco took a lot of heat for constant outages and they reluctantly went out to trim trees. The storms the following year were the same but fewer outages. However, Pepco has not been back since to proactively trim trees, most has grown back and guess what the areas that could have been trimmed knocked down wires.

The storm didn't just target areas served by Pepco yet Pepco areas have many, many more outages. This is a result of Pepco's poor service. Pepco response is also very delayed, poorly organized and done to spend the least amount of money to resolve the outages. I'm sure that our outage will end up in their databanks as being much shorter than reality. Pepco has a habit of cleaning an outage when power is still out. Residents need to realize when they do this and call back to report an outage. Pepco gets to record that they were only out for a shorter period of time. If residents do not call back in to report it is still out, Pepco takes credit for restoring their power earlier even though they did not.

not sure if its fair to compare Virginia to Maryland. Virginia has more newer developments with underground lines. the older neighborhoods in Virginia were hit pretty hard too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Write to the Public Service Commission, your Council members, Ike, O'Malley, and your State Senators and Delegates.

Just did this. Thanks.

[Anonymous]

According to Pepco we are still without power, it came on yesterday. Simple basic things like that show me the system is broken from top to bottom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:According to Pepco we are still without power, it came on yesterday. Simple basic things like that show me the system is broken from top to bottom.

And for us, according to Pepco our power is back on... and it is not! I would prefer your scenario.