UTILITIES: Catharsis Time Again at Con Ed

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Load Factor. Con Ed's biggest headache is shared by most of its customers—coping in Gotham. Unlike nearly all other major power companies, Con Ed has largely residential and commercial customers. The firm has no base of industrial consumers to keep drawing electricity when everyone else goes home for the evening or shuts off household appliances before going to bed. As a result, Con Ed must keep substantial generating capacity in reserve for peak periods but cannot fully use the costly facilities required for this the rest of the time. Con Ed's load factor—the ratio of average output to installed capacity—is under 50%, compared with Detroit Edison's 65.5% and Boston Edison's 58.7%. With almost three-fourths of its transmission lines underground, Con Ed has higher maintenance costs than any other utility. City clean-air regulations prohibit the company from burning not just coal but even cheap high-sulfur crude oil, adding yet another cost that most other utilities do not have to bear.

More than a few industry analysts are critical of the company's inability to deal more imaginatively with its problems. Says one: "Utility companies just don't get creative managers because the business is hemmed in by government regulators and the task of producing electricity is rather straightforward and boring. There just aren't any truly creative businessmen in the field, least of all at Con Ed." Last week's blackout will not make it any easier for the Con Ed management to prove that assessment too harsh.