Tim Knauss
National Grid plans second early retirement offer
Sat Aug 16 15:35:29 2003
64.140.158.64

National Grid plans second early retirement offer

July 25, 2003
By Tim Knauss
Staff writer
http://www.syracuse.com/business/poststandard/index.ssf?/base/business-3/105912228463780.xml

National Grid USA plans to offer early retirement to 462 non-union employees in September, including 106 at Niagara Mohawk, as part of the company's efforts to streamline its work force.

It will be the second such action in the wake of Niagara Mohawk's merger with National Grid last year. The companies offered early retirement to 414 workers in January 2002.

National Grid is "looking to have a more efficient, streamlined organization," said Kerry Burns, speaking for the company.

National Grid has negotiated an early retirement offer, which is expected to be launched in November, for its union employees in New England. Union and management leaders have been unable to agree on a similar package in New York.

Tom Primero, president of Local 97 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, said his members are interested in an early retirement package, but the union has not received what it considers a reasonable offer. No talks have been held on the issue for about six months, Primero said.

The September offer will go to management employees who will be at least 55 years old and will have completed at least 10 years of service by Dec. 31, 2004. Employees from the distribution division operations of Niagara Mohawk will be excluded; all other departments in New York and New England are included.

The package offers employees enhanced pension benefits: either three years of service and three years of age added to their pension calculation, plus $1,200 per month until age 62; or two weeks of base pay for every year of service (up to 52 weeks), plus 12 weeks of base pay.

Details of the offer will be mailed to eligible employees in September. The first retirements are expected in December.

National Grid USA has about 9,800 employees, including 5,500 at Niagara Mohawk.

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Culprit of blackout is still unknown

August 16, 2003
By Charley Hannagan
Staff writer
http://www.syracuse.com/business/poststandard/index.ssf?/base/business-3/1061039724175530.xml

Niagara Mohawk Friday said the power failure that hit eight states and Canada Thursday did not start here.

"We've seen no evidence, no facts, that would support that type of conclusion," said NiMo President William F. Edwards.

"In fact, as we put our system back together we have found no damage," he said. "There wasn't a line or circuit put back into service that didn't stay in service. I think that's a pretty strong indication that there was not a triggering fault on Niagara Mohawk's system."

Officials from NiMo, New York State Electric & Gas and Rochester Gas & Electric Friday urged people not to jump to conclusions about what caused the lights to go out for up to 11 hours Thursday evening and into the next morning.

Investigators focused on an electrical transmission loop Friday that encircles Lake Erie as they tried to understand a massive power blackout that cut across the Northeast and Midwest, leaving millions of people without electricity.

The White House announced a U.S.-Canadian task force will investigate the cause of the blackout and identify actions to prevent it from happening

again. It will be headed by Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham and Canadian Natural Resources Minister Herb Dhaliwal.

President Bush said the power breakdown showed "we need to modernize the electricity grid." But, he acknowledged, "Something like this isn't going to happen overnight."

The cause of the blackout, which continued for a second day in many parts of the region, remained elusive as officials first suggested it had been triggered by a malfunction in Ohio and then backed off that assessment as premature. Earlier it had been believed the problem started in Canada, while still another theory had the cause pinned down to eastern Michigan.

No one was sure.

What did become clear, however, was that power grid experts were stunned at the broad reach of the blackout and the speed - a matter of seconds - in which it spread thousands of miles across New York and southern New England to the eastern sections of Michigan and into Canada.

"We never anticipated we could have a cascading outage" of this magnitude and speed, said Michehl Gent, chief of the North American Electric Reliability Council, the industry-sponsored organization charged with assessing the dependability of the nation's electric grids.

Precautions were supposed to have been put in place to prevent such a widespread domino effect, he said, vowing to ferret out what triggered the chain of events and to take corrective action.

In the meantime,the utilities urged customers to conserve energy throughout the weekend in order to prevent involuntary power interruptions, such as the one that took place Friday morning.

At that time, the New York Independent System Operator, which oversees the state's transmission system, asked some utilities to temporarily cut power to some customers in order to balance the system as more generators came back on line.

NiMo, NYSEG and RG&E cut power to clusters of customers Friday morning.

NiMo cut 120 megawatts from its system affecting customers in Watertown, Cortland, the Trenton-Marcy area and Onondaga Hill, said Kerry Burns, speaking for the company. The event lasted from 9:30 a.m. to 10 a.m.

About the same time, NYSEG and RG&E cut a total of 51 megawatts, also for a half hour. The outage affected customers in Rochester, Irondequoit, Webster, Auburn, Elmira and Owego, said Denis Wickham, executive vice president and chief operating officer for NYSEG.

As power restoration continues in the rest of the state, the ISO may request more rolling blackouts over the weekend. The utilities urged customers to continue conserving electricity throughout the weekend so that the ISO won't ask them to cut power again.

NiMo said it will notify customers through the media should the need for another blackout arise.

Providing electricityto homes and businesses is a delicate balance between generators and system demand, said Herb Schrayshuen, NiMo's vice president of transmission.

As generating plants shut down Thursday, demand overloaded the system, which then forced the utility to cut power to customers.

"It should not have tripped as many lines as it did, and should not have cascaded," he said. "That is clearly going to be the core question for the investigation."

At about 4:05 p.m. Thursday, the ISO - the overseer of the state's high-voltage transmission system and wholesale electricity market - saw power swings in the Midwest. The event cascaded into Ontario and then New York, the ISO said.

Six minutes later, New York's electrical system began shutting down.

Eventually the system stabilized, providing a very low level of electricity so that some customers never lost power.

NiMo said it had restored power to all of its customers by midnight Thursday, while NYSEG reported service restoration to most of its customers by 3 a.m. Friday. - The Associated Press contributed to this report.

[The following news release was jointly issued by National Grid and Niagara Mohawk]
New York Public Service Commission Approves Niagara Mohawk-National Grid Merger Proposal
http://www.nationalgridus.com/news_information/news_releases/news_releases_container/nr20011128a.shtml

SYRACUSE, NY, November 28, 2001 - The New York Public Service Commission today approved a merger plan between Niagara Mohawk Holdings Inc. (NYSE:NMK) and National Grid Group plc (NYSE: NGG) that will result in Niagara Mohawk Power Corp.’s electricity customers saving about $1 billion over the next 10 years, compared with rates projected without the merger.

"We are extremely gratified with the Public Service Commission’s approval of our merger and rate plan," said Rick Sergel, National Grid USA president and CEO. "The plan was negotiated and endorsed by a wide array of diverse consumer, environmental and business groups and will provide significant benefits to customers and to the Upstate economy." Sergel noted that the benefits called for in the plan will be instituted upon consummation of the merger, which remains subject to Securities and Exchange Commission approval under the Public Utility Holding Company Act.

"Today’s PSC approval brings us another step closer to reducing and stabilizing energy delivery costs and enhancing our economic development commitment in the communities we serve," said William E. Davis, Niagara Mohawk’s chairman and CEO. "We are looking forward to delivering the benefits that our combined companies can bring Upstate New York."

The merger and rate plan calls for:

* An immediate 8 percent reduction in electricity delivery prices. When those savings are applied to a customer’s entire electricity bill - which also includes the cost of electricity purchased - the net savings are projected to equal 5 percent.
* Price-stabilized electricity commodity service for residential and small commercial customers for several years, providing those customers with significant protection from any major fluctuations in the generation marketplace.
* A $12.5 million expansion of Niagara Mohawk’s annual Upstate New York economic development efforts.
* A comprehensive service quality plan with defined customer service and reliability goals.
* Forgoing the collection of approximately $850 million in nuclear costs that otherwise would have been collected from customers.
* Extending by 16 months a multi-year gas rate settlement, resulting in gas delivery rates -- unchanged since 1996 -- remaining the same through December 2004.
* Extending the Low-Income Customer Assistance Program, which was expanded under Niagara Mohawk's existing regulatory agreement with the PSC, and the development of a special rate for eligible low-income customers.
* Environmental benefits such as interconnection assistance for wind power sources, support for "green" power marketing, and the continued sale of surplus land for preservation.

Among the parties who negotiated and endorsed the merger plan are PSC staff, the Public Utility Law Project, an advocacy group for low-income customers; the New York State Consumer Protection Board; the New York State Department of Economic Development; the Empire State Development Corp.; Multiple Intervenors, a trade association representing the state’s largest commercial and industrial employers; the Natural Resources Defense Council; the Association for Environmental Defense; the American Wind Energy Association; the Distributed Generation Power Coalition; the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 97; and a number of energy marketers and energy services companies.

Niagara Mohawk and National Grid hope to complete the merger in early 2002.

Niagara Mohawk Holdings Inc. is an investor-owned energy services company that provides electricity to more than 1.5 million customers across 24,000 square miles of Upstate New York. The company also delivers natural gas to more than 540,000 customers over 4,500 square miles of eastern, central, and northern New York.

National Grid USA includes local electric companies Massachusetts Electric, Narragansett Electric, Granite State Electric, Nantucket Electric, and a substantial transmission business. Its parent company, National Grid Group plc, builds, owns, and operates electric and telecommunications networks around the world.

NOTE: This release contains statements that constitute forward-looking information. Such statements are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions. All of these forward-looking statements are based on estimates and assumptions made by the company’s management which, although believed by the company’s management to be reasonable, are inherently uncertain. Such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance or results and involve certain risks and uncertainties. Actual results or developments may differ materially from the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors.

Media Contacts:

Niagara Mohawk
Syracuse - Kerry P. Burns, 315-428-5266
Albany - Nicholas J. Lyman, 518-782-2155
Buffalo - Stephen F. Brady, 716-857-4300

National Grid
Westborough - Jackie Barry, 508-389-3298

National Grid Group plc
Clive Hawkins, 011 44207 3125757

Investor Relations Contact:

Niagara Mohawk
Leon T. Mazur - 315-428-5876

National Grid Group plc
Marcy Reed - 011 44 207 312 5779
Terry McCormick - 011 44 207 312 5785
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