Public utilities turning private.
Public utilities turning private.
(OP)
I work for a public utility in Canada. Been here for about two years now in a field P&C position. When I was watching the news this morning I saw that the government is thinking about selling the utililty to the private sector.
Has anyone been in this situation before? Any experiences worth sharing?
Thanks,
Mark
Has anyone been in this situation before? Any experiences worth sharing?
Thanks,
Mark






RE: Public utilities turning private.
RE: Public utilities turning private.
When it does occur, I'd expect it likely there could be significant reductions in staff almost across the board, but especially in engineering.
RE: Public utilities turning private.
I've worked with a lot of other Ontario utilities (who went through the public -> private transition). Don't expect radical changes. Expect more of the same... i.e. attrition of retiring workers, less new hires, gradually increasing workload.
RE: Public utilities turning private.
RE: Public utilities turning private.
Your government should study the British situation and learn from Thatcher's mistakes.
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If we learn from our mistakes I'm getting a great education!
RE: Public utilities turning private.
RE: Public utilities turning private.
I've seen a few cases where a utility outsources its processes to private contractors to the point where nothing remains but its executive offices. Maintenance, operations and engineering are all done by outside contractors. These contractor derive an additional benefit from this relationship in that they (largely) escape regulation. They charge what the market will bear and its up to what remains of the utilities' management to take the heat from the public. While theoretically, its possible to put such services up for bid, the entry costs for a new supplier to come up to speed on that utilities engineering standards, GIS data, and processes is so high that eventually most work is done under sole source contracts.
RE: Public utilities turning private.
The end product we recieve is almost always subpar...
RE: Public utilities turning private.
Muthu
www.edison.co.in
RE: Public utilities turning private.
Think about it. The private sector may try to save money to not perform required maintenance (First energy company (??) in US 2003(??) black out) and may require raise the rates to triple or higher and others. Sooner or later it will lose the control like what happened in British.
The number one goal of these private sectors is making money but not to benefit the public.
Public sector will create monster of overstaffed and bureaucratic one like here in Canada but pubic got some benefits at least.
Payment issues: I am suffering too in the company I am working at (a public utility). Highest education/ engineers get lowest pay and managers get highest pay.
For example, my salary was increased $30000 in the past 6 years. The Sr. mangers level increased $150000 in the same period.
Over staff and Bureaucratic: And now they got more "process managers" which have no experience in electric utility before but simply their friends or big talkers even recent graduate students. Here the more you talk, the higher position and the higher pay you will get. (I still remember two years ago, A VP level person said "no problem we can build a 138kV switching station in $ half a million")
6 years ago I have two direct report managers now 4.
Which one do you like?