The fire truck sirens wailed all night.
The first night of the Great Blackout was truly unbearable.
The mayor looked at the patches of sky outside, reddened by flames, and let out a heavy sigh.
The separation of the Federal Power Supply Enterprise and the Power Grid Enterprise had indeed achieved the effect of preventing monopolies—at least, that was what the officials themselves believed.
They had hoped that having more companies compete with one another would resolve the fact that the market was monopolized by a single enterprise.
The result was that every state had one or two particularly large enterprises, along with two or three—or even three to five—very small ones.
In the eyes of the public and the Federal Government, this was not a monopoly. It was free market competition.
Small enterprises were small because they lacked core competitiveness.
Large enterprises were large because they possessed core competitiveness.
It sounded plausible, but whether it was really true was difficult to say.
There were three power companies in the state: two thermal power companies and one Small Hydropower company.
The Small Hydropower company's supply could cover only the city near its power plant, and its supporting small grid was effective only within that city.
Of the other two main thermal power companies, one supplied residential electricity to most of the cities in the state, while the other supplied Industrial Electricity throughout the entire state.
The two power grids were also relatively independent. After all, residential electricity did not require such high voltage, and considering the construction of the grids, Industrial Electricity and residential electricity were kept separate.
The power plants were all still operating, but the residential power grid had suffered widespread failures due to poor management and other reasons.
Emergency repairs were currently underway, but the situation was