PG&E Decreased Voltage Long Before Energy "Crisis"

Earth Island Journal Winter01-02

What a Jolt Engineers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory came up with a marvelous solution to California's energy woes: Reduce utility voltage by 2.5 percent and save the equivalent of 500 megawatts. The two major southern California utilities immediately agreed to the plan but northern California's Pacific Gas 6r Electric (PG&E) complained that reducing power would damage appliances. When this was shown not to be the case, PG&E sheepishly revealed the real reason it couldn't comply: the utility had already been secretly supplying power to customers at reduced voltage all along! Consumers may wish to demand a refund.