I see they have clueless Legislators in Mass. too. The rates will go up and you will be paying yourself .Regulated utilities are guaranteed a fixed rate of return.

It would be foolish in my opinion to try this. It is not the Companies fault for acts of nature! Just how do you figure out what they have to pay? Depending on time of day and each individual custumer usage, it would be a nightmare to figure out. What if you have a generator, do you not get a check well your nieghbor who was not as prepared does, or should the company pay for your gas? It would also cost the company a lot of money to do it. That will of corse be passed on to every customer, including those who did not lose power. There are enough little fee's on the electric bill now that are unfair in my opinion, this would obviously create another one. We also have the 2nd oldest electric infastructure in the Country. There will allways be power outage from storms. Also what about brown outs in the summer from people over burdening the system, do we pay the electric company back for the damage caused by that? After all that is caused by the customer.

This is just plain foolishness and nothing more than government yet again trying to control private businesses when it has never run a sucessfull business in history, except in to the ground.

There are Tree ordinances in most towns that forbid cutting old trees the way the power companies would recommend. People want the Trees .
Hey Jack

Some Conversations were having, a"

The cost of any new law would be passed on to Massachusetts Customers so please Daniel Winslow do nothing as usual.

This law must be for business to compensate for lost revenue. Why would they have to pay people for something they didn't use. The meter doesn't work when power is off hence why should I be repayed.

I agree that this is a cost that would be passed on to the consumer.

What a moron

So when my washing machine or my car is in the shop
The manufacturer has to pay my?
Good deal?
When the government does not work they have to pay us
Grest

If towns that have their own private utility company supplying electricity (like North
Attleboro) can consistently restore service within 12 to 24 hours, why can't National Grid do the same? Or at least look into the model. Week-long outages should not be happening.

Rick... I lived in N. Attleboro for many years... through the famous '78 blizzard (or whatever it was), a notorious May snowstorm similar to what we just had, a number of ice storms and hurricanes, and power was always the least of our problems. Whatever N. Attleboro and Mansfield are doing, perhaps National Grid should take a look at. In Seekonk I lose power at least twice a year... something is clearly amiss.

And one other thing... the electricity rates in N. Attleboro were always the lowest around. I like Seekonk as a town and wouldn't run back to N. Attleboro just for their electric rates, but they are doing something right in that particular department.

I have to disagree there rcik, You are comparing apples and oranges. The customer base and infastructure are massive in New England for nationa grid. And well you may some may have had 40mph gust many had 60mph, plus ice that tore down many tress and toppled a lot of them. In bristol, and aquidneck Island many of the old trees were toppled right out of the groud. Not to mention the power station that that blew in Fall river where aquidneck Island gets their power from by an underwater cable that has been a problem for decades. I remember a long time ago when they wanted to replace it. But the Envirmentalist, Coastal resources, Army Corp od Engineers and many other groups cause it to not be done, because of law suits, raising the cost to astranomical.

This is all very complex, and yes National shares a lot of the blame, but so do many special interest groups and the local and federal governments. It seems nothing in this country when it comes to infastrure can be done anymore because of the time frames of getting just permits, not to mention years of law suits before it can even start.
I could name a thousand problems not national grids fault and a thousand that are. It just is not a quick fix.

I lose power over the last 20years at least 20 or 30 times a year in my neighborhood from small storms. Though recently it has finally gotten down to about 10.

We are living with a system that is so large it would take 50 years to improve it to the standards of new system in some parts of the country. I do not know how much wire is involved in Attleboro, but I do know it is probably million of miles in national grid. We live in an area that has the most changable and drastic weather at times. Even the last storm we had repair crews from new york, and canada down here, again. That kind of damage no company can maintain staff to d it. It is not possible unless you want rate a 1,000 times higher.

Frankly I don't want to stick up for he company, nut when it comes to weather they are at the mercy of nature like anyone else. So when it is nature I say give them a break, just like I do the state workers plowing in a blizzard. ;-}

To emcee, again servicing 27,825 is not comparable to services for 14,444,865, there too many varible the attlboro does not have and national grid does. Just saying ;-}

Jack, I agree on the complexity and size issues. Maybe National Grid is overwhelmed. Maybe small towns, each by each, should look into their own private systems. Otherwise, it seems as if it will only get worse with time as National Grid takes on more and more customers.

Plus, the Rep. who is putting forth this bill for rebates is from Norfolk. Norfolk and Foxboro have suffered particularly long outages in the past two storms. So, I guess that's where he is coming from.

If they had to pay customers who were out of power, the electric company would shunt all their workers to the highest population densities. Every single repair truck would head to the industrial parks (highest average day rate), or the largest cities. Tiverton - Little Compton residential customers would be last on the list, even if the repair jobs were "easy." The problem is that we have overhead wires, unlike modernized countries. What a shame that the US infrastructure was allowed to fall apart.

(In the meantime, the US senate just killed pending infrastructure bills, although, thank goodness, they took the time to clarify that our US motto is "in God we Trust.")

I may be in the minority but I think Nat'l Grid did an excellent job restoring power to Aquidneck Island after the storm. I do think that the vulnerability of the power grid was highlighted during the storm. In my opinion, rather than reimbursing customers, the focus should be on strenghtening disaster preparedness and identifying and reinforcing vulnerabilities in this aging system. Mandate that instead.

I think that if the power is out for a LONG amount of time, perhaps having to PAY people might behoove them to get their act together. An ounce of prevention and all- OR how about fines paid to the TOWNS? it seems the ONLY place you can hurt a company like national grid is in the WALLET.
I remember narragansett electric trimming and maintaining OFTEN and we had less power outages, and when there WAS a power outage it wasn't for a week or more!
I don't think national grid (the corporate headquarters and investors) have ANY interest or care in whether or not we have power, except when that means they lose money or look bad.
I don't think monopolies of any kind are a good thing and wonder why it's not FULLY de-regulated like just about everything else.
I am worried for my 89 year old grandmother who is alone and without power, as all other elderly in our area- I dont want to know or think about how many are injured die to the cold or WORSE over the "DAYS" it's going to take to get power restored.
Granted, the state should probably have a program for this- but not having power for DAYS in the middle of winter - after how many storms we had when it was warm and we lost power? That didn't teach NG anything? It's as if GOD himself if saying DITCH NATIONAL GRID!!!!!

National Grid is not reinvesting profits into the network. Power outages are now common with any storm. That wasn't the case with Narragansett Electric. Blizzard of 78 we had power.

National Grid sends the profits home to the UK. But they request rate increase after rate increase for the distribution network.