The danger of saving energy

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by aerostealth

My point is electric utilities should not just be in the business of selling power.

Most electric utilities are. I know PGE and Clark PU both charge customers a little extra to fund energy saving programs such as discounts on updating appliances, installing insulation, updating windows, or getting an energy audit. I received a "free" energy audit soon after moving into my home and requesting one online.

Electricity use per capita has been in slight decline over the years despite an increasing reliance on electricity in technology.

If your utility does nothing to promote conservation, I would say it is among the minority of providers.

[aerostealth]

All of these programs are just a token effort compared to what is possible.

[changzuki]

The conversation in this thread is excellent. There's another undercurrent here as well and it goes way beyond just the electric company: it goes under many titles but the gist is that if there isn't constant growth ($$) then the system collapses. The US is pricing itself out of the income of the common user - period. And yes, this hurts those with lesser income far greater than the rest. We are running on money that does not exist folks.
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If all but one household in a rural community went off the grid, the power company would likely leave as the only person left (or the power company) couldn't even begin to pick up the stranded costs left by those dropping the line. The local municipality would then lose all the tax revenue when said company leaves. The residents would be forced to make up the gap in the lost revenue (taxes).. And in the conversation you never hear about these larger entities making any meaningful cutbacks do we? Not on the level the working folks do.
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Help inefficient houses be more-so by insulating? A noble cause but less energy used as a result is lost revenue for someone else.
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Net metering is fun - but why are there subsidies for that? Why are we paying people to take a technology that should stand on its own? Where is all that free money coming from?
The entire system was never designed for efficiency and band-aids are temporary. The great ponzi scheme won't last forever. it can't.
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~CrazyJerry

[aerostealth]

Energy is a national stratigic resource that is too precious to allow people to waste. Every grid tie system is not only carbon neutral but represents new generation capacity that should be subsidized and encouraged given our global warming predicament. Having every solar user go stand alone is a waste of resouces and deprives the community of their excess generation capasity. We simply must convert the national fleet to electric drive which should be charges with renewable sources as much as possible. Yes change is bad for some of the players in this scenario but they will just have to suck it up the way the buggy whip makers did 100 years ago. Our collective survival future is just too important to allow this problem to manipulated by market forces. Climate change represents a existential threat to humanity and is long past the time we started acting like it.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

Have the citizens lost the ability to vote on their local representatives?

People deserve the consequences of those they allow to be in power; good and bad.

But people are not all alike: for every intelligent person like you and me (and frankly, I'm not too sure about you :-)), we have nine shortsighted idiots. So we generally wing up getting what the idiots deserve.

Democracy in a nutshell: two coyotes and a lamb, voting on lunch :-)

[Fat Charlie]

More like two lemmings and a bird, all agreeing that going over the cliff is a good idea.

[Frank Lee]

I had a long and eloquent post all composed but then Windows crashed. I'll see if I can get it back... maybe this time really short and eloquent.

Electric utilities send out monthly fliers which are cover-to-cover preaching about conserve, conserve, conserve. Well, by law they have to.

But in the last... oh... five years? My electric utility has changed it's rate structure to be far, far more conservation UNfriendly than it was already! Yes, heavy users pay less per KwH than light users.

Back in the day when my monthly service fee was $7, I discovered that users of >500 KwH/mo paid less per KwH than those using <500/mo.

This is a direct contradiction of the message they send to all of us 12 times per year.

It is a disincentive to conserve.

But that was then, back in the GOOD old days!

Now they've jacked up the monthly service fee 4X, yes you see that correctly, FOUR TIMES what it was, all in one swell foop. Now my actual energy usage is 1/4-1/3 of the bill. In other words, I can up my usage substantially and only see a fractional increase in the bill.

Nothing anyone can say will convince me that fuel, wages, and whatnot increased like that, or even with some sort of accounting "smoothing" went up like that. It is a transferral of even more cost to the small (efficient) user i.e. subsidy to heavy users.

I'm not even talking about commercial users. This is only about residential accounts.

This isn't universal; my folks' farm on the other end of the same State still has a $5/mo service fee AND the price per KwH is lower. Must be magic, huh.

PG&E out on the West Coast has the right idea: progressively tiered pricing. Here in the dopey Midwest we have regressively tiered pricing, I think to prop up sales.

[ksa8907]

Originally Posted by changzuki

The conversation in this thread is excellent. There's another undercurrent here as well and it goes way beyond just the electric company: it goes under many titles but the gist is that if there isn't constant growth ($$) then the system collapses. The US is pricing itself out of the income of the common user - period. And yes, this hurts those with lesser income far greater than the rest. We are running on money that does not exist folks.
-
If all but one household in a rural community went off the grid, the power company would likely leave as the only person left (or the power company) couldn't even begin to pick up the stranded costs left by those dropping the line. The local municipality would then lose all the tax revenue when said company leaves. The residents would be forced to make up the gap in the lost revenue (taxes).. And in the conversation you never hear about these larger entities making any meaningful cutbacks do we? Not on the level the working folks do.
-
Help inefficient houses be more-so by insulating? A noble cause but less energy used as a result is lost revenue for someone else.
-
Net metering is fun - but why are there subsidies for that? Why are we paying people to take a technology that should stand on its own? Where is all that free money coming from?
The entire system was never designed for efficiency and band-aids are temporary. The great ponzi scheme won't last forever. it can't.
-
~CrazyJerry

Good points! While i do not think utilities are out to screw the consumers, the question always comes back to who pays for the infrastructure?

I ahould also point out that i am on the natural gas side of utilities, not electric. The problem for electricitiy producers is the loss in transit. I don't know the numbers but it is significant. Whether you support it or not, the future is smaller, high efficiency NG generators and solar/wind with net metering. Though again, who pays the fixed infrastructure cost?

[ksa8907]

Utility bills have always been a rate per unit. The problem is, sorry if i keep rehashing it, is that as fixed costs have exploded (labor, materials, etc.) The bill is still determined by a rate of usage.

Rather than paying a very small connection fee and then a significant amount per unit. The most accurate way to pay is a large connection fee (fixed costs) then a very small rate per unit.


We, as a country who relies on power spread across large distances, need to reduce fixed costs aggressively. Distributed generation, less transmission loss amd line maintenance.

[changzuki]

In an odd way it does appear the local tax barons are thinking ahead... For example, in my area, these net metered roof-top solar installs are now considered a "home improvement" and as you may have already figured out, the assessed value will raise and updated taxes levied.
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I'm all for conserving, etc, (being off grid I better be!) but if anyone is motivated to do this stuff in an effort to save money - good luck! There is always a new policy ten steps ahead looking to cash in on your new-found savings!
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In case it was cloudy where you live, there's a dose of sunshine from yours truly,
~CrazyJerry