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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gottfried who wrote (46947)	5/18/2001 8:01:10 AM
From: w0z	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Gottfried, *OT CA energy* Also I think it is way premature to praise Bush for the energy policy. Let's see how well it has worked out in 2 - 3 years. When deregulation started in CA in 1996 we heard about the advantages of it and the savings to consumers to come. And don't forget that a federal agency encouraged it all. I agree. On the surface, deregulation seems to make sense and I certainly don't pretend to understand what CA did wrong. It was being considered here in NC but the CA problems have probably set deregulation on the back burner for every state considering it. I was looking forward to it here for the following reason. I live in a rural area of NC which uses a local co-op utility (these are called REA...Rural Electrification Associations...in some areas of the country). Although our rates are reasonable here (~.06/kWh where I live now), I was accustomed to a Time of Use (TOU) rate which was available in a different area of NC near Raleigh. I had a large house there (>5k sq ft) with two heat pumps and a large swimming pool (3 big circulating pumps). The first January after moving from Colorado, my electric bill was $830 which I thought was astronomical. By using the TOU rate which charges an extremely low rate (~$.03/kWh) during non-peak hours and a high rate (~$.25/kWh) during peak hours (which vary with the season of the year), I was able to cut my average electric bill by ~2/3 averaged over a 6 month period (you read it correct...my average bill was ~33% of the same period the previous year). I wanted to do the same thing when I moved to my present location but the local utility did not offer TOU to residential customers. I thought deregulation might compel them to provide it since it is truly a benefit both to the utility (by reducing peak demand) and to consumers (by providing a low rate during non-peak hours). Of course I did a lot of other things to conserve energy such as installing timers on hot water tanks, pumps, an override system on the heat pumps to prevent them from going into an inefficient resistance heating mode, etc...but the largest savings came because of the TOU rate. I empathize with the problems CA is having but feel most of it has been brought about by not constructing any new generating capacity over a long period of time...not necessarily deregulation. Unfortunately problems like this which are long in the making also take a long time to get resolved. Someone forgot to explain the consequences to consumers of not building new capacity...and I fault the politicians for that since I'm sure the utilities tried but were probably out-shouted by environmentalists. As is often true in life, the loudest person may not necessarily be correct...but Sacramento and Washington have yet to learn what you and I did on the playground. I hope the CA utilities are providing information and incentives to consumers to better balance peak load. If you have not heard of TOU rates, you might ask your local utility. A small investment in timers (~$50 each) for things like hot water heaters, a "smart" thermostat (~$150 each), etc could reap higher returns than you will get on AMAT if you buy now and sell at the next peak! Good luck this summer and be thankful you live in a relatively temperate area of CA.