Yesterday, I read over 25 posts and comments about the high electrical rates from Eversource. How did these rates get so high? I think this is partially caused by something that happened over thirty or forty years ago.
As I understand it, and I could be wrong about this history, some rocket scientist in the State legislature decided it would be cool to open up the electricity market to competition. In the true spirit of the free market, the legislators decided to deregulate the energy market. In their infinite wisdom and the true spirit of capitalism, they would allow competition in the electric market that had been previously regulated. They would deregulate the energy market. Other companies could now compete with Eversource, and offer their services. Sounds great, right? We consumers could shop around for the cheapest rates.
However, Eversource had other plans. “Hey wait!” They said.”who is going to pay for upkeep and maintenance of the power lines? Who is going to cover our costs to our contractors?” So some rocket scientist decided to add a delivery charge, to go to Eversource. This charge would be an additional charge to our bill roughly proportional to our electricity bill.
Now Eversource did do one thing to help us out. They offered a budget plan where consumers would pay a fixed amount each month. This would prevent wild swings in our bills where in January we might pay five or six hundred dollars and in July we would pay maybe a hundred.
Unfortunately, to my knowledge as I called around to alternative suppliers, no one else offered a budget plan. But they all had the delivery charge. There was no escape. It was like being trapped in the famous hotel room that Sartre wrote about in his play, No Exit. No escape from the delivery charge.
So if we want to use the budget plan, we are stuck with Eversource. If we want cheaper rates with potential wild swings in our bills, we are stuck with an alternative energy source. Trapped between the devil and the deep blue sea.
Meantime, Evilsource’s CEO makes millions annually. He sits around all day, laughing at the poor suckers who are trapped in his system while he presumably plays with his stock options all day.
So that’s the situation folks, trapped between the devil and the deep blue sea. We just have to suck it up and pay the devil his dues.
Mel
Your article prompted me to go to PowertoChoose.org that we have here in Texas provided by the Public utility commission where we can choose from the various plans. Since before the year 2000 I have gone there to choose a retail power provider from our grid (the one that failed for four days during freezing weather) owned by Entex.
I've always been able to get good rates for entirely renewable resource power. My three year contract with Chariot at 9.7¢ per kilowatt hour ended yesterday. They offered to continue with another three year contract at 21¢ per kilowatt hour! But, I found a new two-year contract with GenX for 11.5¢ and just signed on.
In my case here in Texas, like with auto and home insurance, it pays to not just renew your contract every year without checking on the competition. Unfortunately, while their rates are low, Entex is still the only choice for natural gas. Unless I have another way of pumping it to my house or go all electric that would be very expensive.
Ron