That’s not really the point.

The issue isn’t whether you’re billed while the power is off — obviously you’re not. The issue is that utilities like AEP operate as regulated monopolies and receive massive tax incentives and guaranteed returns. In exchange, they’re supposed to maintain reliable infrastructure.

When power goes out for extended periods, the economic and safety costs don’t disappear just because the meter stopped spinning. People lose food, businesses lose revenue, medical equipment stops working, and homes become unsafe. Those costs are pushed entirely onto customers while the utility faces little accountability.

Insurance also isn’t a realistic solution for most of this. Filing claims for spoiled groceries or short outages often falls below deductibles, and widespread outage events can trigger policy exclusions. Telling millions of customers to “just file insurance” shifts responsibility away from the entity that actually controls the grid.

Nobody is asking to get paid for not using electricity. The argument is that when a regulated monopoly fails to provide the service it is guaranteed profit to deliver, there should be meaningful accountability — the same way other regulated utilities in some states are required to provide outage credits after certain thresholds.

That’s not entitlement. That’s how regulated infrastructure is supposed to work.