Summit Notebook

A power outage that affected millions of electricity customers in Florida on Tuesday may be a sign of things to come.

U.S. utilities have underinvested in capacity in recent years, and densely populated areas where demand is high may be facing more future blackouts as a result — that’s according to the North American CEO of Swiss/Swedish engineering group ABB.

Enrique Santacana told the Reuters Manufacturing Summit the U.S. needs “tens of billions” of dollars in investment in new sources of energy, more efficient power networks and conservation — all of which play to ABB’s strength as a global provider of energy infrastructure.

Reuters asked Santacana what the U.S. energy industry — and its regulators — have learned from the power blackout that hit the Northeast and Midwest of the United States and parts of Canada on August 14, 2003, and whether a repeat of that event was likely.

FPL Group Inc, the main electricity provider in South Florida, is an ABB customer.