Sitting duck or wise old owl. [electricity generation and transmission and public relations]
Utilities are building few generating stations these days, but modest customer growth means that transmission and distribution facilities must be built or rebuilt in the coming years. This means a customer typically opposing a construction project is likely to be a suburbanite worried about the effect a distribution or transmission line or substation may have on home values as well as the potential health risks posed by that facility. Those worried about the prospect of falling home prices or potential health risks have the motivation and the means to make life difficult for utilities that don't understand how the rules of the game have changed. While the profile of the protestors has changed in recent years, the views of many utility executives have not. Too many still believe the public can be ignored when it comes to siting facilities or structuring rates. Utilities will spend mightily to mollify the public after it becomes angry. But it would be less costly - and more productive - to invest in advance in an ongoing program to help avoid an angry public. If that approach is successful, those in media and government relations will find they have fewer brushfires.
- OSTI ID:
- 6406482
- Journal Information:
- Public Utilities Fortnightly; (United States), Vol. 131:4; ISSN 0033-3808
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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