Get Ready for Rate Hikes

first of all... (0.00 / 0)

....turn out the lights when you leave the room.  then turn down the thermostat. do your laundry on COLD. 

then the next time you're at Target or Lowes, get a slew of those low energy bulbs, which are a lot better and cheaper than they were just a year ago.  that 10% hike should be fairly easy to recoup with a bit of conservation.  (not that it doesn't totally suck that the utilities are jacking their prices)

i make a game out of cheating the utilities out of their ill gotten gains by simply not using any more energy than absolutely necessary.  and there are times when life's a fact and we need to consume more (like last week when i was sick and had the heater waaaay higher than usual to stay cozy with my chills.)  so now i compensate for that.  my theromstat is on 64, which is a degree cooler than i usually keep it.  sometimes i light a fire with wood i have forreged.  Greg rolls his eyes when i do this and accuses me of playing "silly little war refugee games." 

"But honey, it's FREE!!"  i tell him.

I have the last laugh every time the power bill come in and it's curiously LOW.  but trust me, it does't happen on it's own.

But it's not all sacrifice.  as a luxury, i can take a long hot shower with water heated by the sun's rays.  and on a sunny day like this, i'll turn into a prune before running out of hot water. i recommend it highly to anyone.

does anyone else have any ideas?

activist for hire.

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by: Jay Lassiter @ Sat Feb 10, 2007 at 20:09:09 PM UTC

Property taxes (4.00 / 1)

So electric costs for schools and other government buildings will go up 14 percent, too.  And we wonder why property taxes  increase.

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by: huntsu @ Sat Feb 10, 2007 at 21:22:53 PM UTC

ugh.... (0.00 / 0)

...i didn't think about all that.

activist for hire.

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by: Jay Lassiter @ Sat Feb 10, 2007 at 23:28:21 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Re (0.00 / 0)

I wouldn't exactly refer to the auction process as "deregulation".  The action is, in fact, highly regulated with both a floor and ceiling price pre-determined when the bidding begins.

The reason the bidding process is in place is that NJ utilities do not have sufficient generation capacity.  It is cheaper for them to buy electricity built elsewhere than it is to build a new generation plant that would be used at less than 50% capacity (the point where it generally becomes price-effective to run a generator).  We could ban the auction, but then all of the utilities would have to build new plants which would be even more costly.

It is also useful to understand that the people effected by this auction are those who have NOT opted into competitive pricing.  The reason for not doing so is that competitive pricing (which is usually more environmentally friendly) usually more expensive than traditional non-competitive energy. 

The reason prices are higher for this contract year is that contracts are locked in for three years.  So the prices are higher this year than they were in 2004, even though they are lower than last year.  While this means that energy companies will make more money off of last year's contract than otherwise, the truth is that they've made less money that otherwise forseen when the contracts were signed.

XT

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by: Thurman Hart @ Sun Feb 11, 2007 at 03:27:07 AM UTC

Every New Building With a Clear Southern Exposure.... (0.00 / 0)

...should have to have solar panels, or pay some kind of penalty. The penalty funds go toward subsidizing the solar installations.

Double the existing incentive programs for home/industrial solar.

Train thousands of folks to become solar "engineers" to do the site evaluations/etc and installers.

Let the profit motive work.  Let's unleash the free market forces in a sanely motivated/regulated manner.

ALL those solar installations would be pumping power BACK into the system when no one is home in the day and little power is used.

In the long run this would CHEAPEN our energy costs and reduce the need for burning coal and for more nuclear while diminishing co2 emissions. 

Add some serious incentive to manufature/buy plug in hybrids and you have a whole new state of affairs.

But, guess what...the interests making out well under the status quo aren't going to let the policy makers they own do anything so sensible.

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by: Nick Lento @ Mon Feb 12, 2007 at 00:33:04 AM UTC

Amen. (0.00 / 0)

It breaks my heart to see new warehouses go up on old farmland- it happens all the time around here in Central NJ. What would soften the blow, however, would be to cover these things in solar panels. There are no trees to block it and a huge economic incentive in free/reduced cost energy over the long run. I'm sure the initial economic outlay is insane on that scale; my own solar panels set us back a pretty penny; but there would be the added boost of the "look at how green we are!" ad campaign.

-Sharon GR

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by: Sharon GR @ Mon Feb 12, 2007 at 16:16:43 PM UTC

[ Parent ]