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PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION


06-E-0894: Queens Power Outage

PSC Expands Proceeding to Include Prudence Investigation

The Commission expanded the scope of its proceeding examining all issues associated with the equipment failures and power outages in Con Edison's Long Island City electrical network to also consider the prudence of Con Edison's conduct before, during, and after the Long Island City July 2006 outage. The expansion of the scope of this proceeding to encompass prudence review was appropriate to ensure that issues are fully examined, but the prudence investigation is just one aspect of a multi-issue investigation.

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About the Initiative

Beginning July 17, 2006, Con Edison's electric system experienced problems that resulted in the failure of some distribution feeders and caused customer outages, most notably in the Long Island City electric network, which serves the northwestern portion of Queens.   On July 21, Con Edison estimated the total number of customer accounts without service to be about 25,000 (which is equivalent to approximately 100,000 persons).

On July 26, the PSC instituted a proceeding to examine all issues associated with the failure of Con Edison's feeders and the outages in the network.  As part of the proceeding, PSC Staff has conducted a comprehensive examination of:

Staff also reviewed Con Edison's filing pursuant to Part 105 of the Commission's rules, which requires Con Edison to describe its restoration efforts, and its "root cause analysis" report entitled "Comprehensive Report on the Power Outages in Northwest Queens in July 2006." These filings may be viewed by clicking on the September 25, 2006 and October 12, 2006 links in the "Related Documents & Resources" section below.

In addition, the Commission held a series of public statement hearings to receive input from members of the public and other interested parties on issues related to these events and Con Edison's response.  

Notifications of the public statement hearings were provided to the public, community leaders, and elected officials prior to the hearings through several public notices and press releases distributed to media outlets (including radio, TV, and daily and weekly newspapers) in the five boroughs of the New York City as well as in the Hudson Valley and on Long Island. The releases were also distributed to all members of the New York Senate and Assembly, and a notice of the hearings was included in the testimony provided by PSC Chairman Flynn before the Assembly Energy and Corporations Committees on August 3, 2006. In addition, Department staff contacted several local Assembly persons and Senators, New York City Council members, the local Congressional representative, Community Boards 1 and 2, and three community-based organizations in the affected area to request their assistance in notifying the public and posting of fliers throughout the community.

Subsequently, the Commission scheduled additional public statement hearings and has provided an opportunity for the public to hear from Staff about the status of the on-going investigation.

The full notice for the hearings and the briefings may be viewed in its entirety by clicking on the October 6, 2006 link below.

The Public Service Commission was particularly interested in comments from customers that addressed the following questions:

Staff's Report with its findings and recommendations may be viewed by clicking on the February 9, 2007 link below. Initial comments on the report were due by March 2, 2007(see the February 13, 2007 Notice below), and reply comments were due by March 30, 2007. Thereafter, on April 6, 2007, Con Edison submitted a request (posted in the "Related Documents and Resources" section below) for the Commission to establish a proceeding to explore the potential for alternative resolution of the "prudence" of the Company in respect to the July 2006 outages in Northwest Queens. The Commission will consider the request.

PSC Staff Contact:

Media Contact: James Denn : (518) 474-7080: james_denn@dps.state.ny.us

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