paper-wrapped cables
to stay till 2024.
For years, the state Public Service Commission has been after Con Ed to replace its 10,000-volt paper-insulated cables, some of which failed during the 1999 Washington Heights blackout and last year's nine-day Astoria and Long Island City outage.
Con Ed concedes that the underground cables have a higher failure rate than newer ones, but it has no plan to replace them all before 2024.
CON ED ‘PAPER’ RIPPED
paper-wrapped cables
to stay till 2024.
NEW YORK, NY — Con Ed charges the highest rates of any major U.S. electric utility, yet rotting paper wrapped around aging high-voltage wires is all that separates the city from its next blackout.
For years, the state Public Service Commission has been after Con Ed to replace its 10,000-volt paper-insulated cables, some of which failed during the 1999 Washington Heights blackout and last year’s nine-day Astoria and Long Island City outage.
Con Ed concedes that the underground cables have a higher failure rate than newer ones, but it has no plan to replace them all before 2024.
“The company has imprudently dragged its feet,” the union wrote in a PSC filing.
As of last year, paper-insulated cable made up 27 percent of its distribution system, Con Ed said. In its request for a 17 percent residential electric-rate hike, it proposes spending $39 million a year to speed up replacement of the old cables by 2020.
