Dive Brief:
- The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld almost $22 million in fines levied by the state's utility regulators against NStar, National Grid and Western Massachusetts Electric Co.
- The court upheld the bulk of the fines, which were related to outages stemming from Tropical Storm Irene in August 2011 and a snowstorm in October 2011.
- Some fines, however, were vacated by the court.
Dive Insight:
Massachusetts' highest court has sent a message that utilities will be judged by the speed of their storm response. NStar, National Grid and Western Massachusetts Electric Co. will have to pay almost $22 million in fines, according to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.
The fines were brought by the Department of Public Utilities for the utilities' responses to two storms in 2011. But some portions of the fines were set aside. The court's decision nullified a $900,000 fine against National Grid and more than $2 million against NStar.
According to the Cape Cod Times, Irene left about half a million customers in NStar's territory without power; though most had electricity within an hour, some didn't see the lights come back on for almost a week. The court found the utilities did not restore service to customers "in a safe and reasonably prompt manner."
