this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2023
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Comical that people think when storms or physical damage happens that a power co can magically still provide power. When your infrastructure is damaged, power goes byebye, period the end, being regulated or grid connected makes zero difference once that happens. Just a talking point for people that don't understand power distribution and want more government control over everything. My state deregulated power a very long time ago, and it's saved us a ton of money and gives us choices we wouldnt have before. It in no way changes reliability during storm damage.
Fwiw (I live in Illinois) over the years our system was updated with materials and redundancies to counter loss of service during storms. There's been a number of times over the last few years that a bad storm hits and does damage that previously would have created a loss of power, but you can watch the power flicker for a few seconds while the system tests alternate routes that are able to continue to provide service to the most residents. There was a time that power outages were expected a few times a year during bad storms, but I can't recall the last time we had a weather related outage of more than a few minutes.
Obviously local to the damage there nothing to do but wait for the infrastructure to be repaired, but that happens far faster when there's redundancies supplying the majority and fewer repairs that need to be addressed.