Quoted Text

Speculation of National Grid's possible sale of its U.S. units has been rampant ever since January, when the state Public Service Commission approved a $113 million electric rate increase for upstate New York -- far below the $360 million request it had been seeking for shareholders.

That speculation is expected to increase this week because National Grid will announce its year-end earnings on Thursday -- when company officials will likely once again express their disappointment in its U.S. returns.

"Recent disappointing rate cases in New York and Rhode Island have only served to intensify this debate, and in our view, (National Grid) is now actively considering an exit from the U.S. as a potential option, although the current mantra remains trying to turn around the business."

Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/busi.....67.php#ixzz1MjfHKAlG

Looks like they are having a hard time getting away with charging $7.62 for electric AND the DELIVERY charge of $42.33 for such a small amount of usage.   We've noticed the less we use the higher the delivery charge goes up.   Obv. it's not energy conservation that's the issue, but the $$$$ owed to the stockholders and the bottom line.

Quoted from Mr. Majestyk

Looks like they are having a hard time getting away with charging $7.62 for electric AND the DELIVERY charge of $42.33 for such a small amount of usage.   We've noticed the less we use the higher the delivery charge goes up.   Obv. it's not energy conservation that's the issue, but the $$$$ owed to the stockholders and the bottom line.

True, yet there are still a bunch of profoundly clueless cheerleaders who mindlessly support hydrofracking, and actually believe that it will lower their bills, even though the energy industries stated last week, that it wouldn't.

While we're at it, maybe some of the corporate shills in Washington, can address the fact that National Grid, is foreign owned, and whenever the northeastern corridor goes down, even temporarily, there is hell to pay.
If it stays down for any length of time, it could have national, if not global implications.
How a foriegn owned corporation could yield that much power over us, stupifies me.

It's no big secret that N.G., does almost no maintenance, compared to the way that the NIMO of old did things.
Remember that ice storm a couple of years ago?
Yeah, that was a barrel of laughs, because apparently, it's more cost effective to fix the stuff after it breaks, than to prevent it from breaking in the first place, and most of the outages were attributed to tree limbs that were never trimmed back.

The days of NIMO crews standing by to deal with a most certainly impending storm, are long gone, and now, we're expected to cheer on crews from out of state, when 3 days after the disaster, they finally arrive.

National Grid's answer?
As I was sitting in the freezing darkness (hoping that the cellar had stopped flooding) listening to a National Grid spokesman on local AM radio, he promised that over 1 million dollars, would be invested in maintenance over the next 5 years.

Do you know what 1 million dollars buys?

1 large bucket truck (and equipment), one dump truck, a trailer mounted grinder, and crew, to operate it all, for barely a year, and that's not counting fuel and maintenance for it all.

For the entire region that N.G. covers.
1 truck.

Thanks.