I don't fully understand my electrical bill. Really, who does?
Okay, diving in, first you got your supply charge, or generation service charge, which is the product of the kWhs they send you times your electrical rate. Easy enough, but does that mean the amount you receive at home or what leaves the power plant, since between five and 15 percent of electricity is lost along the way depending on voltage? Dunno. Then you've got the delivery charge, which is comprised of intangible sub-charges they invent to pad the bill, especially for ingrates grabbing free energy from the sun. Namely: customer charge, distribution charge, transmission charge, transition charge, revenue decoupling charge, distributed solar charge, renewable energy charge, and energy efficiency charge. Not to mention bureaucratic intransigence charge, fat cat vacation house charge, repair van idling in front of your house charge and WiFi winking out when house guests arrive charge. Yes, I jest in that last sentence. And to be fair, the revenue decoupling charge on our last bill was negative, coughing up two plump pennies.
You see, my wife and I are considering installing an electrically powered heat pump to mostly replace the natural gas-powered furnace that warms our home. But how much would that reduce our carbon footprint, and thereby make an incredibly tiny contribution to fighting climate change, if the electricity running the heat pump comes from burning fossil fuel? Then I remembered that years ago I signed up through my electricity provider, Eversource, for the green supply option via a company called Dynegy. The very same Dynegy that's recently been bought by Vistra. Eversource, Dynegy, Vistra; Eversource, Dynegy, Vistra. It's kind of hypnotic to say aloud, Eversource Dynegy, Vistra, and the upshot is that any electricity I get off the grid, by the magic of the renewable energy credit market, is produced by renewable means (wind, solar, hydro) somewhere in the windblown, sunburnt, rushing-water USA.
Whew! And the price is nice, too, thanks to my town of Somerville which negotiated a community-choice electrical aggregation rate. I think. Well, I know this much: I did not reply to a scamming come-on from a company such as CleanChoice Energy who, like the cable TV companies, will snag folks with a sweet intro rate and then jack up future charges. Because, they claim, renewable energy costs more than polluting energy. Which, you should know, it usually doesn't anymore.
Skeptical? Take it from Forbes, a notoriously leftie publication.
Okay, diving in, first you got your supply charge, or generation service charge, which is the product of the kWhs they send you times your electrical rate. Easy enough, but does that mean the amount you receive at home or what leaves the power plant, since between five and 15 percent of electricity is lost along the way depending on voltage? Dunno. Then you've got the delivery charge, which is comprised of intangible sub-charges they invent to pad the bill, especially for ingrates grabbing free energy from the sun. Namely: customer charge, distribution charge, transmission charge, transition charge, revenue decoupling charge, distributed solar charge, renewable energy charge, and energy efficiency charge. Not to mention bureaucratic intransigence charge, fat cat vacation house charge, repair van idling in front of your house charge and WiFi winking out when house guests arrive charge. Yes, I jest in that last sentence. And to be fair, the revenue decoupling charge on our last bill was negative, coughing up two plump pennies.
You see, my wife and I are considering installing an electrically powered heat pump to mostly replace the natural gas-powered furnace that warms our home. But how much would that reduce our carbon footprint, and thereby make an incredibly tiny contribution to fighting climate change, if the electricity running the heat pump comes from burning fossil fuel? Then I remembered that years ago I signed up through my electricity provider, Eversource, for the green supply option via a company called Dynegy. The very same Dynegy that's recently been bought by Vistra. Eversource, Dynegy, Vistra; Eversource, Dynegy, Vistra. It's kind of hypnotic to say aloud, Eversource Dynegy, Vistra, and the upshot is that any electricity I get off the grid, by the magic of the renewable energy credit market, is produced by renewable means (wind, solar, hydro) somewhere in the windblown, sunburnt, rushing-water USA.
Whew! And the price is nice, too, thanks to my town of Somerville which negotiated a community-choice electrical aggregation rate. I think. Well, I know this much: I did not reply to a scamming come-on from a company such as CleanChoice Energy who, like the cable TV companies, will snag folks with a sweet intro rate and then jack up future charges. Because, they claim, renewable energy costs more than polluting energy. Which, you should know, it usually doesn't anymore.
Skeptical? Take it from Forbes, a notoriously leftie publication.
The immortal Ted Stepien Speaking of Vistra, headquartered in Houston, Texas. That energy company, historically a prodigious burner of coal, claims in an October 2019 press release to be going green. They can do this, in part, thanks to their recent purchase of Dynegy, which of course partners with Eversource. Vistra, Dynegy, Eversource. Anyway, Vistra promises to reduce its CO2-equivalent emissions by 50 percent by 2030 (with 2010 as a baseline). Moreover, they aspire to an 80 percent reduction by 2050 -- assuming, that is, and here's the usual corporate wiggle-speak, "necessary advancements in technology and supportive market constructs and public policy."
That last bit means they want a carbon tax. They practically beg, later in the press release, for the government to regulate the economy in such a way to force them to produce green energy. So, you might ask, why not just do it now? Why do you have to be made to do the right, and smart, thing? For the same reason, I suppose, that NBA owners came up with the Ted Stepien rule, prohibiting the trading of first round draft picks in consecutive years. It's named for the former owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers who couldn't resist mortgaging the future of his team in order to win games now.
Of course, Ted Stepien was just screwing up a basketball team. The profit-obsessed jokers who own our polluting energy companies are playing with the futures of our children.
That last bit means they want a carbon tax. They practically beg, later in the press release, for the government to regulate the economy in such a way to force them to produce green energy. So, you might ask, why not just do it now? Why do you have to be made to do the right, and smart, thing? For the same reason, I suppose, that NBA owners came up with the Ted Stepien rule, prohibiting the trading of first round draft picks in consecutive years. It's named for the former owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers who couldn't resist mortgaging the future of his team in order to win games now.
Of course, Ted Stepien was just screwing up a basketball team. The profit-obsessed jokers who own our polluting energy companies are playing with the futures of our children.
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