Will Tewksbury Residents Foot The Bill For Blackouts?

In 2011, Tewksbury residents spent many days and nights in the dark.

They might spend a good portion of 2012 and 2013 in the red.

According to a report by the New England Center for Investigative Reporting, the three major power companies in New England (National Grid, NStar and Western Massachusetts Electric) intend to slap their customers with the $160-190 million repair bill associated with the 2011 storms/blackout.

Details of how those costs will be passed along have not yet been determined, according to the report, which was published by the Boston Channel.

Ultimately, the decision to allow rate increases for the major utilities rests in the hands of the state Department of Public Utilities. However, they have rarely rejected rate increased tied to major repair costs.

Tewksbury was hit hard twice by major power outages. the first came in August, as the Tropical Storm Irene (downgraded from Hurricane status) rolled across the region.

The second came just two months later with the "Snowtober" storm that knocked out power to 90 percent of Tewksbury for several days in later October and early November. Some customers were without power for nearly two weeks. At the worst of the "Snowtober" disaster, approximately 1.4 million customers were without power in New England.

According to the New England Center for Investigative Reporting report, there have been eight major power outages in Massachusetts since 2007.

By comparison, there were just two major outages from 2001-2006, according to the report.