I wish I could give them 0 stars. I really like Columbus, but it seems like every time someone sneezes, we lose power. I grew up on the East Coast, where we get some nasty storms and occasionally the remnants of hurricanes. We don't lose power like this. I even lived on the Delaware beaches for two summers--and that was years ago. Hellacious storms, and no power outages like this. Suburbs of Philly--same thing: maybe two power outages (once when a driver ran into a pole) in 10 years, with the longest lasting about 3 hours. That was considered an incredibly long time. In fact, you could call a line and get an estimated time to restoration of power based on your address. There were many things I didn't like about PECO, but they were excellent at keeping the lights on. Days of outages? Just did not happen. Ever.
More than 10 years in Chicago. Same thing again: no power outages like this. Maybe 30 minutes here and there.
In my development, perhaps 20% of houses now have standby generators! That's like something I saw in the developing world, in Koh Samui, Thailand, a beautiful, tiny island in the middle of the Gulf of Thailand. It made sense there. You could get around the entire island on a scooter in maybe an hour, and they were exposed to typhoons and monsoons. But here? It's just unacceptable. Columbus, other areas of the country do not live with these sorts of power outages, and they have storms, above-ground lines, icing, and strong winds just like central Ohio.
I am so glad to see AEP sweating because of deregulation. And they ARE sweating, or else they wouldn't be resisting competition so fiercely and spending your money on misleading ads. Record profits but undependable infrastructure? That's just not acceptable. There needs to be some sort of incentive for them to keep the lights on. Maybe mandatory rebates based on the amount of time the lights go out. Maybe doubled or tripled to account for inconvenience, inability to work from home, and spoiled food. Perhaps they should have to pay for standby generators for those of us who need them (pretty much everyone), since they cannot provide dependable electricity.
I'm with First Energy now, and I do save about 10% on the energy generation portion of my bill. The distribution/transmission portion doesn't change, because that still comes from our hapless friends at AEP. I wish I could have First Energy, Duke, Excelon--anyone but AEP--take over the entire infrastructure, because it could not possibly be worse. read more