At 03:29 PM 9/15/2000 , you wrote:
> For some, the increases in power usage costs (the bill at
> the end of the month)... is astounding... Some people in
> San Diego (the first city to fully deregulate their power
> industry) had their monthly power bills increased up to
> 300%... Some of the rate payers are up in arms....
Last year my bill averaged $50 a month. In May of this year it was
$38. June was $60. July was $90. August was $186. Over that period of
time I cut back in any way I could. I work from home so there were some
things that could not be done but I did not turn on the AC even on those
105 degree days.
The legislature came up with a fix only a politician could love and a
compliant public could accept. They fixed what we pay with the difference
between that and the real cost taken out of a balancing fund. Now who pays
the fund? That question has been moved three years into the future when
many of the current crop will be termed out. The law has some vague
promises of assigning blame after an "investigation" then passing the costs
on to them.
Another part of the law allows a "streamlined" building process for new
plants. No where was nuclear mentioned but I suspect that is the next
step. The net result of the legislation is that deregulation stays and we
pay for it sometime in the future.
The reason for the high prices? Greed and nothing else. They tried to say
that demand was up but look at the real numbers and demand was less that
last year. They tried to say that peak demand was the problem but prices
were still very high in the early morning hours and power was sold to the
PNW cheaply and bought back during high demand at very much higher prices.
I wish they had deregulated the whole state and kept prices high. They
maybe conservation and net metering would increase. I am investigating net
metering and would like to set up a wind plant here. Does anyone know of
any good mailing lists on home wind energy?
Don Bowen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Valley Center, CA Senior Software Engineer
Internet development and software engineering
http://members.cts.com/crash/d/donb
http://www.oldengine.org/members/ihc14
http://www.oldengine.org/members/ferguson/
http://www.corvair.org/chapters/chapter920/
