A radical rethink of utilities is coming

I came to appreciate toothpaste. When you go without running water and flushing toilets for a week, not to mention lights, cable and internet, the feeling of clean teeth is a simple pleasure that helps make the situation bearable. But only just.

My family was just shy of a week without power after Tropical Storm Isaias, and all things considered we made out fine. My mother lives 15 minutes away and did not lose power, so my wife and I were able to work — and shower — at her place while the kids went to day camp. Each day we’d lug home a crateful of water jugs to get us through the night, and the kids would get some time in the air conditioning before we all headed back to our increasingly dank home.

The lights came back on the Monday after the Tuesday storm, though cable and internet were a few days longer. Had we not had family to turn to I’m not sure what we would have done, though even that was dicey. Months of careful social distancing went out the window as two crises collided.

Though it’s been the better part of a decade since the state experienced three Isaias-level outages in a short period, this latest failure naturally raised questions about what exactly we’ve been doing in the intervening years to prevent exactly this outcome. There were many hearings after those outages, plenty of discussions. Why did a midlevel storm leave the state crippled? What would happen in the event of an actual hurricane?

Eversource is the kind of company that you look at and think it has one job only — to keep the lights on. It does more than that, though — according to its website, it’s moving ahead on carbon neutrality by 2030, and it’s been recognized for its green energy commitment.

Still, all that doesn’t mean much when the company can’t handle the basics. And no matter the circumstances, there is no excuse for leaving people a week in the dark. When providing power is your first job, you need to get it right.

But there are at least some signs that the way Eversource has been going about its job is not going to work anymore.

U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy is one of many people in the state who doesn’t seem to understand why our utilities function the way they do. “Spent the morning on the phone with Eversource CEO Jim Judge,” Murphy said on his Twitter account as the lights were coming back on. “I told him it was time for policymakers to examine the future of for-profit utility monopolies. With big rate hikes and a week without power, is the benefit of a publicly traded electric company worth the downside?”

Later, Murphy followed up by saying, “I am spending the rest of summer getting deep in the weeds learning the benefits of publicly owned utilities. We need to seriously consider this as an option moving forward.”

This followed a similar remark from a state representative, Bridgeport’s Steve Stafstrom, in the midst of the power failure: “Can someone explain to me why a ‘public utility’ that operates as a monopoly can be traded on an exchange and has a fiduciary responsibility to maximize shareholder profit?”

There isn’t a good answer to that question. A private business that operates in the marketplace is theoretically at risk of being beaten by competitors. It makes decisions based on the knowledge that it can always be overtaken if customers decide it’s not doing what it should be.

But an electric utility isn’t making products that customers can choose to buy or not. It’s providing an essential service, and it’s the only option for delivery available. There’s little role for competitors, so customers have no choice if service is poor.

There are many services that could arguably be better provided through a public institution rather than private companies — say, health care. Why do we want companies to cater to shareholders when all the attention should be going to recipients of the service? Who gains from such a system, other than shareholders and multimillionaire CEOs? It didn’t save Connecticut from a weeklong power outage.

Whether this will go anywhere remains to be seen. Many politicians were outraged, but limited their statements to questions about rebates and oversight. A push to overhaul how utilities go about their business hasn’t developed yet.

It still might. Connecticut was far from alone in its wave of deregulation that turned once-public functions over to the private sector in the name of someone’s idea of efficiency. If it wants a meaningful reaction to a disgraceful storm response, it could be the state that decides the system has to end.