National Pride National Greed

[CPOPE]

British power company National Grid on Friday completed its acquisition of U.S. utility KeySpan after receiving final approval from New York State regulators earlier this week.

The combination creates the nation's second-largest utility, with 3.3 million electricity customers and 3.4 million natural gas customers in New York state and New England.

With its $7.3 billion takeover of KeySpan Corp. completed yesterday, British energy giant National Grid PLC plans over the next four to six months to begin putting the National Grid name on bills, trucks, and the Dorchester gas tank alongside the Southeast Expressway, officials said. This prominent KeySpan property overlooks the city of Boston. The Hub of the universe.

Don't believe calculated savings from this merger will be an overall cost savings. "Higher ratings would be possible over time if NG materially improves its financial profile," said Standard & Poor's analyst John Kennedy. Worse than Enron we are now selling the domestic Transmission & Distribution electric and gas infrastructure. This deal puts ownership of the NE/NY natural gas and electrical grid in foreign hands.

The sad overall fact is Jobs will be reduced profits shipped overseas. Safety will suffer through forced merger changes of combining policies, procedures, equipment and work practicies of different operations.

An enhanced early-retirement plan offered to KeySpan and National Grid workers this year "was very well-received, and at this point, it looks as though we will be able to achieve the reductions through voluntary programs and attrition," National Grid spokeswoman Jackie Barry. Aside from the political spin you've got to realize National Grid management workforce are "employees at will" and the union repersented workforce is fractured between multiple brotherhoods and locals that it is not effective.

THe Redcoats are here! Don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes:eek:

[loodvig]

Where you been? The Grid has been buying up things for years now. And I bet that they're not done yet!

[Stinger]

I keeping hearing rumor that NG wants to buy northeast untilities, public service NH and & CMP. If that happens we better buy some vasoline, it won't hurt as much when they shove it up our butts in rate hikes.

[loodvig]

If you think about it, it makes sence for them to look at those companys. NG was and is a transmision company. They were in England. Then they bought New England electric and then NiMo in N.Y. They only wanted those companies for the grid system. The power plants were sold off real quick. If you look close at the Keyspan deal I think you'll see N.Y. state gas and electric in the fine print somewhere. You'll see them owning the whole northest grid system some day! JMO

[CPOPE]

Where you been? The Grid has been buying up things for years now. And I bet that they're not done yet!

Where have you been? Working alone as a troubleshooter till you gave up the ghost and retired.

They have and continue to be buying stuff up like they have a tapeworm, Massachusetts Electric, New England Power Service Co, Granite State Electric, Narragansett Electric, Nantucket Electric. The Former Eastern Utilities Assoc Co's of Blackstone Valley, Newport Elect, Fall River Gas& Elec. Brockton Eastern Edison Niagara Mohawk and Now Key Span Long Island. On and on they go.

Loodvig, I'm sure we spent some time together over at Mass Elec. I started in Hopedale back in 88 and moved over to NSTAR couple of years back. I mean no disrespect with the trblshooter comment. The point of this forum is to suggest articles for Powerlineman Magazine.

I'd like to see the mag publish an article about foreign takeover of US infrastructure. It's sad and we should consider it. The US manufacturing base is gone, now the #2 utility in the Americas is British owned and operated. It's right up there with the Arab Emirates getting the Homeland Security contract for US port security.

Where does it end?

[loodvig]

'Loodvig, I'm sure we spent some time together over at Mass Elec. I started in Hopedale back in 88 and moved over to NSTAR couple of years back. I mean no disrespect with the trblshooter comment.'
Not to worry as I'm pretty thick skined.
Better watch out because there was a rumor, maybe 2 years ago, that the GRID was sniffing around NStar! I also agree that this subject would be great for the mag.

[Jonodownunder]

I worked for the Grid in England for 16 years as a transmission Lineman doing mainly maintenance work.They want to become the biggest utility in the world and it wouldn't suprise me if they didn't some day.
I would say their safety polices and procedures are 2nd to none.
The only problem back in the uk was that they cut down all the crews over time and all the big jobs went out to contract.We were left doing all the patrolling and **** stuff like that.It was a good job if you like that kind a thing but I prefer real work so I moved on.

[mrnick]

they just bought/merged with KeySpan...

they are making their way slowly to the top I guess :o

[mrnick]

**** didnt see the first post lol...go me :rolleyes:

[22900013A]

IN the Uk only one of the power companies in still in UK hands...

[BigClive]

None of these are the original technically minded companies they started off as. They are just large money grabbing corporations dominated by people motivated solely by personal wealth.

I don't know what the future of the electrical distribution industry is, but it won't be pretty and it won't be safe.

[Orgnizdlbr]

None of these are the original technically minded companies they started off as. They are just large money grabbing corporations dominated by people motivated solely by personal wealth.

I don't know what the future of the electrical distribution industry is, but it won't be pretty and it won't be safe.


Well said Clive, in the US every industry which has seen some form of deregulation has been motivated by wringing every last cent for profit by those who run the companies.

[BigClive]

So do the power systems just get more and more delapidated as time goes on? What happens when the sheer lack of maintenance and training of crew catches up with reality?

I'd guess the corporate management who caused the mess in the first place just lay themselves off with huge golden handshakes and leave the mess to the tax payer to sort out.

Every facet of society is being f*cked over by parasites. It would be nice to have a young government who held those responsible to account. But unfortunately they seem to own the government too.

Oh darn! It's making me go all ranty-politics again. :mad:

[australiantroubleman]

We went through lots of dereg stuff and where almost sold to multinationals about 9 yrs ago .
Same old story no maintenance no upgrades or augments unless the whole area is ready to collapse.

They split the company in two , one company owned the power infrastructure the other company owned the staff and liabilities . Had to invoice for everything you did, made lots of jobs for accountants but not for engineers or field workers.

Basically the system ran on its fat for about 4 years then started to collapse , poor voltage , overloads everywhere especially in summer with A/C loads .

No money for decent tools or equipment , threats of redundancies it sucked..

Then luckily the public started to revolt, experience with phone and water sell offs all ended in less service higher prices and loss of jobs .

So in the end they had to rebuild the industry basically lots of new infrastructure being installed new equipment , heaps of new staff , big pay rises to keep us in the industry it was a good turn around.

I agree once big money is involved customers workers and infrastructure suffers so shareholders make their dollars .

Eventually it will happen again here they are trying to sell the retail section of the company and the generation but keep transmission and distrubution in public ownership at this stage.

Im glad im in my final years of the industry the good times are in the past , i see a future of working for hire companies on contracts and good money harder to earn
.

[Orgnizdlbr]

So do the power systems just get more and more delapidated as time goes on? What happens when the sheer lack of maintenance and training of crew catches up with reality?

I'd guess the corporate management who caused the mess in the first place just lay themselves off with huge golden handshakes and leave the mess to the tax payer to sort out.

Every facet of society is being f*cked over by parasites. It would be nice to have a young government who held those responsible to account. But unfortunately they seem to own the government too.

Oh darn! It's making me go all ranty-politics again. :mad:

That's exactly what happens Clive, operate till it burns down, poles fall over, or the arms break in two from age.

Have a huge outage involving alot of territory and customers, have enough customers in an uproar and then the regulators step in because the public is all over the politicos ass, put money back in to rebuild, sometimes a bandaid approach to satify the regulators and start all over again.

The key today is aquire a company, wring out the dollars, send it to the fatherland, screw the workers, and give huge bonuses to the corporate officers.......their stealing Billions of $$$$

[CPOPE]

A National Grid executive who allegedly passed thousands of dollars in personal expenses on to ratepayers was promoted to the utility’s top post in the Bay State on the same day the company announced it was laying off 1,200 U.S. workers.

“It’s very troubling to see someone get a promotion for passing along her expenses to ratepayers while others got pink slips,” said Mark MacDonald, president of the New England Gas Workers Association. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

Yesterday, Marcy Reed was named president of National Grid for Massachusetts in a major restructuring of U.S. operations.

Documents surfaced last summer that showed various National Grid execs expensed the cost of private-school tuition, medical bills and a trip to President Obama’s inauguration. Reed herself expensed items such as limo rides, snacks at Gillette Stadium, flowers and Dancing Deer cookies.

The expenses were uncovered last summer by Attorney General Martha Coakley after the utility sought Department of Public Utilities approval for a $106 million-a-year rate increase for the company’s 850,000 gas customers. DPU approved a $58 million increase, which has been appealed by Coakley’s office and is still pending.

Coakley’s office raised questions yesterday about the restructuring and called for the projected $200 million savings to be passed on to ratepayers.

“We have not been briefed on the specifics of the National Grid restructuring and are disappointed by the loss of jobs,’’ Coakley said in a statement. “We opposed a recent rate increase by National Grid, and will seek information on when National Grid knew about this restructuring and whether they factored it into their original rate proposal.”

Reed, who had been senior vice president for U.S. public affairs, yesterday defended her expenses and insisted they were passed on to National Grid shareholders, not ratepayers.

National Grid currently has 18,000 U.S. employees, a third of whom are in management positions. Thomas King, the utility’s U.S. president, said it was too soon to say exactly who would be laid off.