A plea from my Electric Company to Conserve Power

[alarmguy]

My condolences.

For us, it’s just temporary while our new home is being built, but surprisingly, the electric is still cheap at less than $.14 kWh
Our co-op of 16 years averaged around $.10

 

[alarmguy]

Isn't it though when the lights/heat goes out? I mean, your problem if you don't have a generator, your neighbors if you have an alternative power source and they don't. I don't really see it as much of a difference for the power company, deal with a little bad press and go back to business as usual in a couple of weeks.

No, that’s just speculation. It never goes out.

 

[Warstud]

You’re missing the OP’s point: each and every customer PAYS for exactly what they use, plus most utilities charge a connection/service fee just for the “privilege” of paying that company to run itself responsibly and supply what they contracted to do. It’s not the consumer’s fault the electric company is mismanaged! There is a fairly easy way to see how much average demand there is and plan accordingly.

What I get from the Utilities Letter in Bold is that there experiencing high demand for Electricity and Gas for heat from the unexpected cold weather and people should conserve in other areas to prevent an outage .

 

[UncleDave]

For us, it’s just temporary while our new home is being built, but surprisingly, the electric is still cheap at less than $.14 kWh
Our co-op of 16 years averaged around $.10

Looks like you can enjoy that rate for about 7 more days.

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/south-carolina/articles/2022-12-17/power-bills-to-rise-in-january-for-dominion-south-carolina

From this article

Others agreed that the commission should have penalized the company for not doing more to seek fuel sources with less price volatility.
"Dominion has failed to tap into cost-effective solar that would have mitigated recent fuel cost spikes and saved customers millions on monthly bills,” said Kate Mixson, an attorney with Southern Environmental Law Center.

 

[4WD]

got a notice to set at 60°F - but was already there … did turn on a gas/radiant right before coffee time …

 

[SC Maintenance]

There is a fairly easy way to see how much average demand there is and plan accordingly.

You will get no argument from me that our South Carolina Utilities are mismanaged.

However this has little do do with average demand. Its a record setting event. Our energy use pattern is high electric use in the summer (cooling) lower use in the winter. As I mentioned above, we "tried" to build another nuclear power plant and failed spectacularly - so everyone already paid and were still short of supply. I have lived here a long time and this is the first time I can remember ever being asked to conserve anything.

I have gas heat and a generator. If the power goes out I am not too bad off.

My neighbor has heat pumps and no generator. Guess I may have company

 

[99Saturn]

No, that’s just speculation. It never goes out.

Sorta confused by your comment. Never like never or never as in never caused by the grid being overburdened?

Ours certainly has here - twice for more than 4 days during the winter in the 10+ years we've been here, but not from overburdened.

 

[99Saturn]

Taxes aren't supposed to fund water and sewer service. That's supposed to be funded by usage fees and tap fees. The cities I'm familiar with have an "enterprise fund" separate from the "general fund" where water/sewer revenue is collected and water/sewer expenses are paid from. They aren't supposed to commingle the funds. And in the case where a public works employee might do both water/sewer work and buildings/grounds work, they are supposed to record the hours spent on each type of work and their pay comes from the enterprise fund and the general fund in amounts proportional.

Wasn't referring specifically to water and sewer more the roads/etc services in the comment I quoted.

 

[supton]

I could write a book on the harm done to our economy by electric industry deregulation. In fact, maybe I will. I am a retired attorney/engineer whose career involved the regulation of public utility companies.

That could be an interesting read (or it might all go over my head).

What'd I'd be curious in is the discussion of what would price per kWhr had been in the comparison of regulated vs deregulated. I have a hunch that it was low initially after deregulation, and now might go higher--higher than if it wasn't deregulated for the past however long (but I have no background and can't argue this position, ergo the curiosity). Regulated meant higher prices but higher quality, maybe?

 

[4WD]

You will get no argument from me that our South Carolina Utilities are mismanaged.

However this has little do do with average demand. Its a record setting event. Our energy use pattern is high electric use in the summer (cooling) lower use in the winter. As I mentioned above, we "tried" to build another nuclear power plant and failed spectacularly - so everyone already paid and were still short of supply. I have lived here a long time and this is the first time I can remember ever being asked to conserve anything.

I have gas heat and a generator. If the power goes out I am not too bad off.

My neighbor has heat pumps and no generator. Guess I may have company

One thing for sure - whatever takes place - it’s going to be lied about in the press …
When the Not Houston Chronicle claimed we did not have a record cold period last time - I had to turn to 40 year old dead plants for their opinion …

 

[SC Maintenance]

I know those plants better than you might imagine.
One must fully understand research and understand what took place in Jenkinsville.
The biggest fault of all in building those plants was Westinghouse and Toshbia on the brink of bankruptcy all out of local control but fault lays with a coverup by SCEG which snowballed.
It’s too easy to blame government without knowing the facts. The rate payers wanted the Dominion deal (I had a private resident owned electric utility at the time)
Politics aren’t allowed here so will spare response about our governor

All 100% true. However it should never have been funded the way it was funded and there were plenty of warnings. After that - yep plenty of blame to go around as well.

Still doesn't change the fact that the state is short on power.

 

[pghvolvo]

I'm still laughing at the town in NC that begged the residents to cut their water useage due to issues with the water treatment facility in town, so the residents did. A couple months go by and the water company had to ask for a major rate increase because they were not supplying enough water to the town to cover their overhead.

 

[George Bynum]

I think not!
I will not revert my standard of living back to another time in the past because of poor planning by corporations and government. That is their problem, let them suffer the consequences once the public starts to get vocal. We have had decades to properly plan new clean zero emission power plants (nuclear) and have done nothing.

You are in South Carolina. Duke Energy, BEFORE acquiring CP&L, had (has) 3 stations with 3, 2, and 2 units, for 7 units. CP&L had, so Duke added, 3 stations with 2, 1, and 1 units. That's 11 units in the Carolinas; what do you want?

They have aggressively supported solar at multiple scales, have developed hydro where practical to do so, and have updated several less efficient coal fired stations to more efficient combined cycle using NG. We don't have AFAIK an area with sufficient wind for wind turbines. They are involved in the tidal research.

WHAT DO YOU WANT? Where is ahead of us?

 

[Trav]

Full steam ahead here.

 

[KrisZ]

I would not conserve either. I’m already pretty mindful with my utility usage, I’m not going limit it even further.

 

[tbm5690]

Country wide problem

Not really. Plenty of coal and wind here, I've never even heard of a utility here asking for customers to reduce demand.

 

[DuckRyder]

So TVA is apparently requiring local utilities to reduce demand. TVA claims this is the first time in 89 years they have done so... so we've had rolling blackouts in the area since yesterday but they did not hit us until today and they've done it 3 times today for a total of about 45 minutes. Thing is it is so cold the temp in the house drops at least a few degrees so when they turn it back on everyones unit comes on...

Seems to make they are making it worse... but... what do i know...

 

[Creekside]

One of the local utilities here asked residents to set it as low as they could possibly stand and not run any other appliances unless absolutely necessary. This is after a 20% rate hike across the board.

I’m glad we are on a rural co-op that maintains their infrastructure. In 20 years I can count on one hand the number of times we’ve lost power that wasn’t planned. I’ve heard stories of them during a terrible ice storm they went around with a rifle and shot limbs off the power lines because the bucket trucks couldn’t get to them(because of ice). They’ll generally do whatever it takes.

 

[SC Maintenance]

So TVA is apparently requiring local utilities to reduce demand. TVA claims this is the first time in 89 years they have done so... so we've had rolling blackouts in the area since yesterday but they did not hit us until today and they've done it 3 times today for a total of about 45 minutes. Thing is it is so cold the temp in the house drops at least a few degrees so when they turn it back on everyones unit comes on...

Seems to make they are making it worse... but... what do i know...

I wondered about this last year in Texas. They started the rolling blackouts and demand went up, because like you said, as soon as it comes back on everyone says to heck with this and sets the T-stat to 80.

 

[eljefino]

"It's a Wonderful Life" might be on TV tonight.

I recall Jimmy Stewart asking everyone to only take what they needed, and at the end of the movie, it all worked out.

Whatever happened to this spirit?