When 73,000 residents of Manhattan’s West Side were left without power on the night of July 13, both the mayor and the governor, who rarely agree on anything, were quick to blast Con Edison, making it clear it wasn’t the only utility the city could do business with. The blame only intensified when soon afterwards several neighborhoods in Brooklyn had their power preemptively shut off so Con Ed could make repairs to its system.
Then, last Monday, Con Ed finally said it had discovered the reason for the outage: faulty equipment, specifically a flawed connection between sensors and protective relays at a substation. The company also promised it had taken measures to prevent a similar incident in the future.
But Charles Copeland, CEO of Goldman Copeland, an engineering firm that has helped numerous properties get off the grid, said with the city’s aging infrastructure and equipment, there are just going to be more blackouts, especially during a heatwave.
