Saturday, January 15, 2011
Damage Claims from HECO's outages
By Henry Curtis
The Star Advertiser reported today that the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) is reviewing “700 or so claims related to the 2008 outage.”
HECO spokesperson Peter Rosegg said: “We are hoping to have a PUC decision soon ...We appreciate the patience of all those waiting for these claims to be finalized.” The delay is caused by the PUC which must “analyze the whole event ... [to see what] steps ...would avoid a repetition or to improve the response or restoration in the future.” To be fair to the PUC, they have had to deal with “an unusually large number of issues”
In reality, HECO is free to make any payment it wants to -- up to $2M -- without any approval. When an outage occurs and a customer asks for cost recovery for damage to equipment, the utility responds, well how come your neighbors haven't filed for a claim. They then hide behind the PUC. And the long delays and the discounting of payments that are actually received, if they are ever received, is the reason more customers don’t file for payments.
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The Star Advertiser reported today that the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) is reviewing “700 or so claims related to the 2008 outage.”
HECO spokesperson Peter Rosegg said: “We are hoping to have a PUC decision soon ...We appreciate the patience of all those waiting for these claims to be finalized.” The delay is caused by the PUC which must “analyze the whole event ... [to see what] steps ...would avoid a repetition or to improve the response or restoration in the future.” To be fair to the PUC, they have had to deal with “an unusually large number of issues”
In reality, HECO is free to make any payment it wants to -- up to $2M -- without any approval. When an outage occurs and a customer asks for cost recovery for damage to equipment, the utility responds, well how come your neighbors haven't filed for a claim. They then hide behind the PUC. And the long delays and the discounting of payments that are actually received, if they are ever received, is the reason more customers don’t file for payments.
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Comments:
Agreed, this is a war of attrition. The powers that be seem to have all the resources and games necessary to stonewall and wear down those who would claim or otherwise question there systems and methods. Or lets be real blunt here....their lack of preventive maintenance and pre-proactive problem solving. Let it "blow up" and then ask for more money.
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Agreed, this is a war of attrition. The powers that be seem to have all the resources and games necessary to stonewall and wear down those who would claim or otherwise question there systems and methods. Or lets be real blunt here....their lack of preventive maintenance and pre-proactive problem solving. Let it "blow up" and then ask for more money.
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