A plea from my Electric Company to Conserve Power

[Trav]

"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?

Dont open that can of worms, there are lots of people to blame, the ones who really caused all this. I wont say more.

 

[Chris142]

The power company is hosing us! We sit in the dark,don't have ac,heat with a fireplace and propane and my bill.is still $400 a month.

 

[53' Stude]

The power company is hosing us! We sit in the dark,don't have ac,heat with a fireplace and propane and my bill.is still $400 a month.

Wow, that’s nuts. I don’t pay utilities

 

[Chris142]

Wow, that’s nuts. I don’t pay utilities

Are you off grid?

 

[jhs914]

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.

One of the things that really chaps my heinie is when new subdivisions are put up, and because the municipality now has to expand their water/sewer/roads/etc services, rather than charging JUST the new subdivision property owners for their new benefits, EVERYONE including those who may have lived in their houses for 30-50 years now suffer increased rates, even though they do not receive anything new, no benefit to them or their properties! You want new and fancy, you pay for new and fancy.

That new 120+ home subdivision out on the outskirts of town, which will likely be filled with people from outside the current county/municipality and therefore have no skin in the game yet, are now getting brand new utilities that their not-even-yet-neighbors are going to pay for in perpetuity. It’s IMO, and why I live in the country with a well and septic. I’m good with paying for only what I use.

Preach it brother. The rural area where I live has been overrun with new subdivisions. Developers pad the pockets of politicians and get approval for what they want, converting farm fields to dense subdivisions without improving the roads that were intended as farm roads, no additional drainage, traffic congestion, over crowded schools, etc. I now need a traffic light just to get out of my driveway. The politicians get "campaign donations", the county government gets additional property tax revenue, and the long time residents suffer from decreased quality of life.

 

[Rmay635703]

Wisconsin was asking to sert thermostats to 60F or lower last night because of a broken gas system that supplies most of the state.

I was already set to 55F and turned the heat up.

I used to leave it at 45F during the fall (basically the heat is off) but haven’t done that this year.

 

[simple_gifts]

I do mid range computer support. When there are issues beyond our control or within our control nothing better than grouchy users like the OP to deal with.
Many times people are asked to 'not use stuff' or 'use stuff less' while we work on issue.

Couldn't possibly be stuff isn't properly maintained @ the power company due to supply chain or labor issues.

Sounds like a selfish rant IMHO.

Any chance you will reduce use for the benefit of your elderly neighbors? ya, probably not.

 

[Skippy722]

I already try to conserve power and gas simply because $300 utility bills suck, but 65 is the absolute lowest I’ll go on heat.

 

[2strokeNorthstar]

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

I meant the corruption

 

[SubieRubyRoo]

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

What about all the virtue signaling and hundreds of billions of OUR money that they’re forcibly directing to “green” energy to cut down on CO2? They’re ignoring historical fact that in reality, CO2 levels have never been lower than they are right now, and that in reality, water vapor, not CO2, is responsible for 95% of increased temperatures.

I’m just sick of their scams that are sold with Marx’s recycled lies. The end result will be the same; the masses will be enslaved under their ideology and millions will needlessly die.

 

[Blagoje]

If I have to conserve a bunch of electricity, how am I supposed to grow a bunch of hooch to sell and use the proceeds to pay my power bill?

 

[Al]

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.

When the utility "sheds load" it will be your problem

We are so blessed in this country compared to the rest of the world's 95% of people. Hard for me to ***** when I look at Ukraine. To each his own.

 

[2strokeNorthstar]

When the utility "sheds load" it will be your problem

We are so blessed in this country compared to the rest of the world's 95% of people. Hard for me to ***** when I look at Ukraine. To each his own.

They want you to think that way. Just because it's worse somewhere else is no excuse for the issues here.

 

[4WD]

Well - my thermostat is still on 60°F - and flannel + T shirt is all I need …
So, think I’ll pour a glass and check when this got locked in the morning

 

[GMFan]

Woke up here in NC at 7am and the power went out until about 9:30am. Duke was having rolling blackouts all over our area today. Traffic lights were out all over town. Some folks had no power for 12+ hours. It got to 9 degrees F last night. Well this happens in winter sometimes. Now all of a sudden it’s an emergency and the grid can’t support it. We all know what’s going on…

 

[brianl703]

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

Dominion Power, at least in Virginia, has among the worst reliability for electric utilities.

Perhaps the regulators in North Carolina keep them on a shorter leash.

 

[dja4260]

I too live in SC, specifically the upstate. I just got a text message for rolling blackouts possible on Monday…. I live in the country and rely on electric for my well water…darn!

 

[andyd]

Has the most recent rolling blackouts have anything to do with the 3 shot up substations from last week?

 

[JHZR2]

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.

And I suspect OP would be griping if rates went up to pay for infrastructure to support their wasteful practices too.

 

[JHZR2]

Here at least, new construction would have a higher tax burden than existing construction.

In many places new construction gets tax abatements.