Hold on to your wallets, Nevada. NV Energy wants to penalize you for using less electricity — like you were told. As reported by the Las Vegas Sun,
The state’s electric company wants to raise power bills by as much as 5 percent for Southern Nevadans as compensation for the loss of electricity sales because customers are more power-efficient.
NV Energy said programs it funds, such as subsidizing energy-efficient light bulbs and helping customers replace old air conditioners and refrigerators, will result in a loss of $35 million in energy sales this year in Clark County. A rate increase of almost 5 percent will reimburse the utility for its loss, it has told the Nevada Public Utilities Commission.
NV Energy is asking for $7.5 million from Northern Nevada customers, a 3 percent rate increase.
Charging-more-for-using-less-electricity is called “decoupling.”
Decoupling should be rejected because:
- Pay more, get less. Consumers will wind up paying more for less electricity;
- Rationing. Decoupling is the first stop on the pathway to electricity rationing; and
- Anti-capitalist. Through government guaranteed revenues, decoupling undermines fundamental and traditional capitalist business practices and incentives.
You can also judge an idea by its advocates. Obama energy and environment czar Carol Browner, a former muckety-muck with Socialist International, promotes decoupling as means of forcing consumers to use less electricity.
This just all illustrates the fallacy of the cost saving argument for conserving resources such a electricity and water. If you think there are other benefits to conservation, then by all means go ahead and conserve, but cost savings aren’t one of them.
“Private” utilities are pretty much guaranteed a profit for the surrendering price controls to the utility commissions, especially consumer prices. So, when the come out with all the fuzzy, green initiatives, they aren’t going to lose money on it, so you pay more. Public utilities have to cover costs through rate structure and fixed costs tend not to decrease just because the volume decreases. I’m not sure why anyone is surprised when this happens.
SF Water is doing the same thing to us. Our rates are increasing by 40% to make up for lost revenue due to conservation. It’s absolutely crazy, socialist crap. What…they can’t fire anybody?
That’s the same ripoff we have in the Denver area for water. We were pushed to conserve water, including restrictions, but then prices were raised because Denver Water wasn’t bringing in enough money for maintenance.
They also implemented a pay scale where the more you use, the higher rate you pay. So a family of 5 like ours pays far more for watering one yard and garden than does our neighbor, who lives by herself and frequently violates watering restrictions. Her grass is green, even in the winter.
So what’s my incentive again to use less electricity?
“…a loss of $35 million in energy sales this year in Clark County”? Does that mean they won’t be able to afford any donations to political parties and election campaigns in 2012?