>>Under Milosevic we had a different economic model. The workers were paid miserably, robbed by inflation and taxes, but were kept on the job, or kept on so-called "forced vacations", under a partial salary. The regime made savings in other areas: the maintenance. The electric grid survived just on incredible patches, similar to great American technology of duct tape and screwdriver. And we did have power outages, but they were planned. The whole grid was cut into four, six or eight zones, which were without power one or two at a time. So you'd have electricity sixteen hours a day, and had to manage twice four hours somehow, day after day. The country was under sanctions, and electricity was the only exportable commodity, so he sold it out and left us to freeze.
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>>But when the grid was attacked during the bombing, it would get fixed within 12 hours. And, needless to say, once Milosevic was overthrown, there were no more shortages.
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>Interesting. So what would you say were the major strong points - that is, the points that made the grid trustworthy? The decentralization? Redundancy? The underpaid workers (reducing the costs)? Or something else?

It was built by the state, as a single system. And there was a bit of overcapacity in the production (if not really in the distribution), so the surplus was sold to neighbouring countries, and also supplanted from their sources when need arose. The point is that it was designed to supply the country, not to make profit on the market. A dozen years of neglect did dent it severely, but it still works.