Do you like that Xcel is trying to prevent rolling blackouts this summer by doubling charges for those who go over 500 kilowatts usage per month?
Personally I hate power outages & like power conservation so I like this policy, but I don't know how effective it will be. When it is 100F outside, I still think people will be blasting their A/C and only worry about their bill at the end of the month.
Maybe a lot more people will be sitting in the dark when the A/C is running and not using their expensive power vampire TV's.
Thomas Sowell: There are no solutions, just trade-offs.
Great is that alot?? I still think that we could have regulations on power star compliant stuff but the manufacturers squawk about it. When they made refrigerators all energy compliant they saved something like 28 power plants? I think they need to think about it in those terms. HD tvs take a ton of power. If we all knew we could put up less power plants with these energy controls and see it as a whole. Maybe that would make an impact.
What I'm unsure of is whether or not such policies will be implemented by IREA, which purchases some of their power from Xcel.
FWIW SS109, the average home consumes somewhere around 700 kWh every month. My home, which is all electric, consumes significantly more than that during the winter when the electric baseboard heaters get going and the pellet stove is running most of the day. IIRC the winter usage at home is somewhere in the vicinity of 1300 kWh and the summer usage is around 800 kWh. I was getting a little upset this winter when our current electric consumption had dropped better than 10% over last year and our bill was about 10% more than it had been the year before, but our president did promise us that our bills would necessarily skyrocket when his policies were adopted and I figured I was being eased into it to avoid being shocked.
I am a little worried that excessive conservation could be rewarded with increased rates per hour come fall.
Remember when the Denver Water Board penalized all the people who conserved water with higher rates per gallon?
Thomas Sowell: There are no solutions, just trade-offs.
