Talkiet:

Geektastic: It just seems like a very positive thing and very pleasantly uncorporate. If my power was out on Xmas day I'm sure I'd be thrilled if my power company offered to make such arrangements.

Normal people don't keep generators in their houses I wouldn't have thought, personally.

No, but well prepared people will have options...

Personally, I have

- a 2300W generator (with about 20 litres of fuel I rotate out every couple of months)
- a spare full 9KG Gas bottle (for stove or BBQ)
- Lots of flashlights and battery powered lights
- Lots of batteries
- 2 * 10l water containers that get refreshed every month or so
- matches, lighters etc.

Not a prepper by any stretch of the imagination, and I admit the generator is a bit of a luxury (I had to use it for about 3 weeks after the Feb quake down here), but the rest of the list is pretty well within the reach of anyone and should the power go out I could happily continue to feed myself pretty well.

Cheers - N

Aredwood: Sounds like a publicity / marketing to me. Although is worrying as they are implying that they are providing insurance for loss of power. Instead of customers having generators or UPS backup.

Ouranos: UK Power Networks is a monopoly with a regulated rate of return. Providing meals etc during an outage makes no difference to their profit, as the expense is simply recovered through the regulated fees that UK Power Networks charges the consumers via the electricity retailers.

Although this is a great bit of feel-good branding by UK Power Networks, it isn't paid for by them. Customer service by a monopoly is a very different thing from customer service by a company operating in a competitive market. The motivations are completely different.