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Outages blow through supply chains, shop floors and payrolls, often hitting small businesses that have the lowest margin for disruption.
More Access to Power Can Reduce Costs
More than one-third of Americans say energy costs cause serious financial stress. This reality should push the state to strengthen the grid, not avoid investment in it.
GRID CHOICES DECIDE WV’ S ECONOMIC FUTURE
Research shows states with faster electricity growth often saw smaller price increases and, in some cases, price declines. A strong grid allows power to move more efficiently, spreads infrastructure costs across more users and unlocks access to lower-cost electricity.
West Virginia’ s next economic boom won’ t be decided in a board room. It will be decided based on the electric grid.
Businesses in West Virginia are more than twice as likely to lose power than the national average, and when outages happen, they last nearly three times longer. This reliability gap quietly drains productivity, raises risk and puts West Virginia businesses at a competitive disadvantage they can no longer afford.
Yesterday’ s Grid vs. Tomorrow’ s Business Needs
The state’ s transmission system was built decades ago for a slower economy and simpler electric system.
Today’ s grid must support precision manufacturing, e-commerce and just-intime supply chains. Even a momentary outage can trigger financial loss, equipment damage or safety risks. When the grid wavers, production stops.
Manufacturers can lose from $ 20,000 to $ 100,000 per hour when power fails. Nationally, manufacturers generate 12.8 % of private-sector output but absorb 36.8 % of losses from power disruptions.