Report: Competition failing to produce lower electric rates

REPORT:   What the public advocate fails to realize is that all electricity vendors purchase from the ISO-NE wholesale market whose costs are subject to increases caused by RGGI, Renewable Energy Credits, natural gas constraints and wasteful transmission lines to transport wind projects.

ISO-NE has cast aside its independent decision making to facilitate renewables. Competition has been choked off by policies enacted by legislators and administrated by regulators.

Agencies that are supposed to represent the ratepayers' interests (Public Advocate, Govenor's Energy Office, PUC) politicize and weaponize the energy market against the consumers. Then, they blame the very entities that they are manipulating.

The Chase for Zero Carbon is Futile

Report: Competition failing to produce lower electric rates

AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — Maine’s public advocate wants to scrap the competitive process for electricity vendors for residential consumers, saying the current competitive system has failed to produce lower rates.

Residential customers statewide would be better served if they all used the same “standard offer” rate produced by a competitive bid process, Public Advocate William Harwood said Wednesday.

As it stands, 90% of residential customers use the “standard offer” and many of the remaining 10% who opt to choose their own vendor usually end up paying more, Harwood said.

In many cases, low-income Mainers are being taken in by promises of lower rates but they often end up paying more. One vendor is currently charging more than double the current standard offer, he said.

“When you see a low-income Mainer paying more than the standard offer, that just breaks your heart,” he said.

In Maine, electric bills are divided into two parts. The transmission component is the part that’s billed for utility infrastructure for which consumers have no choice, while the electricity is a separate component in which companies can compete for business.

Mainers are already suffering from sticker shock after the standard offer rate grew from 6 cents to 18 cents per kilowatt hour on Jan. 1.

But many Mainers are paying even more than that, Harwood said. One vendor is charging a whopping 39 cents per kilowatt hours to thousands of electric customers in the state, he said.

“This is part of the problem in depending on a competitive market. When it doesn’t work, it’s a real frustration for everybody,” he said.

Harwood said it would be better for all residential customers to use the standard offer produced by a competitive bidding process overseen by regulators. And that process should be updated to reduce volatility, he said.

The report will be provided to the Maine Legislature’s Energy, Utilities and Technology Committee in hopes that lawmakers will adopt some or all of the recommended changes, he said.

Views: 40

Comment

You need to be a member of Citizens' Task Force on Wind Power - Maine to add comments!

Join Citizens' Task Force on Wind Power - Maine

 

Maine as Third World Country:

CMP Transmission Rate Skyrockets 19.6% Due to Wind Power

 

Click here to read how the Maine ratepayer has been sold down the river by the Angus King cabal.

Maine Center For Public Interest Reporting – Three Part Series: A CRITICAL LOOK AT MAINE’S WIND ACT

******** IF LINKS BELOW DON'T WORK, GOOGLE THEM*********

(excerpts) From Part 1 – On Maine’s Wind Law “Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine if the law’s goals were met." . – Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, August 2010 https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/From Part 2 – On Wind and Oil Yet using wind energy doesn’t lower dependence on imported foreign oil. That’s because the majority of imported oil in Maine is used for heating and transportation. And switching our dependence from foreign oil to Maine-produced electricity isn’t likely to happen very soon, says Bartlett. “Right now, people can’t switch to electric cars and heating – if they did, we’d be in trouble.” So was one of the fundamental premises of the task force false, or at least misleading?" https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-swept-task-force-set-the-rules/From Part 3 – On Wind-Required New Transmission Lines Finally, the building of enormous, high-voltage transmission lines that the regional electricity system operator says are required to move substantial amounts of wind power to markets south of Maine was never even discussed by the task force – an omission that Mills said will come to haunt the state.“If you try to put 2,500 or 3,000 megawatts in northern or eastern Maine – oh, my god, try to build the transmission!” said Mills. “It’s not just the towers, it’s the lines – that’s when I begin to think that the goal is a little farfetched.” https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/flaws-in-bill-like-skating-with-dull-skates/

Not yet a member?

Sign up today and lend your voice and presence to the steadily rising tide that will soon sweep the scourge of useless and wretched turbines from our beloved Maine countryside. For many of us, our little pieces of paradise have been hard won. Did the carpetbaggers think they could simply steal them from us?

We have the facts on our side. We have the truth on our side. All we need now is YOU.

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

 -- Mahatma Gandhi

"It's not whether you get knocked down: it's whether you get up."
Vince Lombardi 

Task Force membership is free. Please sign up today!

Hannah Pingree on the Maine expedited wind law

Hannah Pingree - Director of Maine's Office of Innovation and the Future

"Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine."

https://pinetreewatch.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/

© 2024   Created by Webmaster.   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service