OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
Originally Posted By: HTSS_TR
What you are saying is either Pacific Power of Oregon is being duped by contractors or they are lying to the state regulator and the press ?
Thinking about this article a little more I am not so sure that the rate of increase of 0.1% from current power generator to renewable for 14 years is accurate and valid. I think if changing to renewable increases customer rate by 10-20% then it may be believable.
As far as I know most utility companies operate with cost plus in their markets. They need to comply with local regulations, if they are forced to replace coal power with renewable they have no choice but to comply.
Pacific Power clearly said that they didn't expect the rate of renewable is as low as it is now, at least from the bids they received. If they claim the increase is 0.1% but it turns out to be 30-50% what the regulators will tell them ? Rate payers will not be happy with false promise.
But they don't have a choice in the end. All the same types of claims and promises were made up here too and subsequently the "Global Adjustment" fee was worked into the bill to hide these costs under something suitably ambiguous. We (the rate payers) aren't happy, we aren't happy at all! Even the bloody Auditor General has been critical of it with a report that condemned the situation in the province and was able to show that Ontario rate payers are and have been over-paying for hydro by an obscene amount. Unfortunately, as with anything political, accountability and recourse are limited. Twelve years from now, nobody is going to hold Pacific Power to a lack of adherence to their projected rate changes. People may complain about it but nothing will happen.
The crazy part about some of this is the length of the contracts. Our local utility has a 20 year contract guaranteeing them 42c/KWh. So no matter the change in the market, they are covered. Other contracts (and perhaps this one, I don't have access to it) guarantee a minimum purchase amount and a minimum guaranteed payment per month, so even under producers or facilities that are down due to issues are rewarded a certain amount and those that are told not to produce due to demand issues are still compensated as well. These contracts were drafted in a way that appears to solely benefit the awarded and at potentially great expense to the utility and subsequently the rate payer, whose lap the end costs ultimately land in.
If I sound pessimistic it is because I have literally watched this unfold up here for the last ten years. I watch Ontario tax payers, myself included, spend close to 2 billion dollars on a gas plant that doesn't exist. I watched that heavily subsidized solar farm get installed. I subsequently watched half of it get ripped up and replaced only a short few years later. I've watched the wind turbines stand idle and yet more being installed. And I've watched as my hydro bill has more than doubled to pay for all this "free" energy.
What you are saying is either Pacific Power of Oregon is being duped by contractors or they are lying to the state regulator and the press ?
Thinking about this article a little more I am not so sure that the rate of increase of 0.1% from current power generator to renewable for 14 years is accurate and valid. I think if changing to renewable increases customer rate by 10-20% then it may be believable.
As far as I know most utility companies operate with cost plus in their markets. They need to comply with local regulations, if they are forced to replace coal power with renewable they have no choice but to comply.
Pacific Power clearly said that they didn't expect the rate of renewable is as low as it is now, at least from the bids they received. If they claim the increase is 0.1% but it turns out to be 30-50% what the regulators will tell them ? Rate payers will not be happy with false promise.
But they don't have a choice in the end. All the same types of claims and promises were made up here too and subsequently the "Global Adjustment" fee was worked into the bill to hide these costs under something suitably ambiguous. We (the rate payers) aren't happy, we aren't happy at all! Even the bloody Auditor General has been critical of it with a report that condemned the situation in the province and was able to show that Ontario rate payers are and have been over-paying for hydro by an obscene amount. Unfortunately, as with anything political, accountability and recourse are limited. Twelve years from now, nobody is going to hold Pacific Power to a lack of adherence to their projected rate changes. People may complain about it but nothing will happen.
The crazy part about some of this is the length of the contracts. Our local utility has a 20 year contract guaranteeing them 42c/KWh. So no matter the change in the market, they are covered. Other contracts (and perhaps this one, I don't have access to it) guarantee a minimum purchase amount and a minimum guaranteed payment per month, so even under producers or facilities that are down due to issues are rewarded a certain amount and those that are told not to produce due to demand issues are still compensated as well. These contracts were drafted in a way that appears to solely benefit the awarded and at potentially great expense to the utility and subsequently the rate payer, whose lap the end costs ultimately land in.
If I sound pessimistic it is because I have literally watched this unfold up here for the last ten years. I watch Ontario tax payers, myself included, spend close to 2 billion dollars on a gas plant that doesn't exist. I watched that heavily subsidized solar farm get installed. I subsequently watched half of it get ripped up and replaced only a short few years later. I've watched the wind turbines stand idle and yet more being installed. And I've watched as my hydro bill has more than doubled to pay for all this "free" energy.
