State probe into Con Ed doesn’t go far enough for southern Brooklyn rep
The state commission investigating Con Edison for massive blackouts in Brooklyn and Manhattan responded on Monday to a request from 22 City Council members to study the feasibility of revoking the utility company’s monopoly — and the lawmaker leading the charge is less than thrilled with the response.
The Public Service Commission, the state’s regulatory arm for public utilities, said in its letter that its investigation will include “analyzing the root causes of the outages, how Con Edison communicates with its customers, before and during times when de-energization may be required to prevent larger scale outages, and whether any underlying issues or practices had a negative impact on Con Edison’s preparation and response to the recent outage events.”
Signed by commission CEO and Chairperson John Rhodes, the letter does not address the request to consider less traditional solutions such as microgrids, or even a publicly run system, as the 22 city lawmakers demanded.