HULL, MASS. (WHDH) - The Hull Light Department has been ordered to install temporary generators to power the community as officials prepare to take legal action against National Grid after suffering six town-wide outages this year.
Town Manager Phil Lemnios blamed the outages on the “poor condition of the National Grid lines” that provide power to local residents and businesses.
“If the town were to lose power in the winter months, during this period of COVID emergency, it is not feasible for the town to operate a shelter and it is difficult for residents to find alternate shelter out of town in the event of a failure,” Lemnios said in a news release.
Lemnios noted that the town is in the process of finalizing a legal filing to compel National Grid to replace the current power line with one that is more robust and less susceptible to failure.
From Dec. 1 through March 31, the town will be renting five generators to provide power through the winter, according to Lemnios.
Lemnios said the cost is estimated to be $850,000 for the four-month period and it will be paid for from the Hull Light Department’s emergency fund.
“While any outage is always difficult, an outage in winter months with little opportunity to find comfort out of town warrants the expenditure for this temporary service,” Lemnios added.
In a statement, National Grid said, “National Grid has invested more than $2 million over the past five years on improvements to the two sub-transmission lines that provide service to Hull, including replacing and repairing more than 57 structures. We routinely inspect and patrol our transmission and distribution lines and we consider these lines to be reliable. National Grid conducted a root cause analysis of the outages Hull has experienced this year and determined they were the result of wind and storm events, outside the control of National Grid, which caused trees to fall on the lines. Outages were not related to asset condition.”
The utility company added, “At this time, we have no immediate plans to replace the lines based on their performance. We have been in discussions with the Town of Hull and are aware of the concerns that have been raised and are evaluating several additional options.”
Lemnios said the legal action is expected to be filed soon.
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