Hawaiian Electric’s stock tumbled to a 13-year low Monday morning, plummeting nearly 40% after a class action lawsuit filed over the weekend alleged that Maui’s devastating wildfires were caused by the utility’s energized power lines that were knocked down by strong winds.
The suit alleges that Hawaiian Electric Industries “chose not to deenergize their power lines during the High Wind Watch and Red Flag Warning conditions for Maui before the Lahaina Fire started,” despite knowing the risks of sparking a fire in those conditions.
Is this a practised or regulated thing in the USA that power companies shut down regional electricity during strong winds? I have not read about something like that before, not in the EU, USA or other places.
PG&E, the power and gas company for much of California does this. As a for profit company, they outsourced maintenance of their infrastructure to save money. The infrastructure was old, not well maintained or managed and it sparked several large fires over the years. They’ve paid lots of money in restitutions because of this. Now they shut off the power so they can’t be blamed for starting giant fires again…
One company who is currently practicing power shutoffs, which was the question.
Also, they made this choice after several big fires started from their infrastructure- while they were on some sort of corporate probation for exploding a neighborhood because of… faulty and under maintaining infrastructure. Not exactly a one off.
I would expect the answer to be “get your shit together”, not “okay, provide even worse service”. I’m living in rural Germany with a lot of unburied 10kV lines between villages, never heard of one of them starting a fire.
Is this a practised or regulated thing in the USA that power companies shut down regional electricity during strong winds? I have not read about something like that before, not in the EU, USA or other places.
PG&E, the power and gas company for much of California does this. As a for profit company, they outsourced maintenance of their infrastructure to save money. The infrastructure was old, not well maintained or managed and it sparked several large fires over the years. They’ve paid lots of money in restitutions because of this. Now they shut off the power so they can’t be blamed for starting giant fires again…
Yeah, but that’s one company after a major fuck up.
One company who is currently practicing power shutoffs, which was the question.
Also, they made this choice after several big fires started from their infrastructure- while they were on some sort of corporate probation for exploding a neighborhood because of… faulty and under maintaining infrastructure. Not exactly a one off.
No, the question was “is this something normally done?” clearly the answer is no, since only 1 company is doing it.
I would expect the answer to be “get your shit together”, not “okay, provide even worse service”. I’m living in rural Germany with a lot of unburied 10kV lines between villages, never heard of one of them starting a fire.
many other places bury their wires and or do proper maintenance