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operating costs

Resilience for a Power Grid Green Swan Event

By Energy Rant No Comments
Last week’s Reckoning post featured findings from a Wall Street Journal article that demonstrated our power grid is becoming less reliable, and I added that this would accelerate in the wrong direction over the next ten years. Like the Texas fiasco of February 2021, the causes of unreliability are smeared over many stakeholders such as regulatory, state, and federal government agencies, power suppliers, and voters. Utilities can be stuck in the middle, attempting to keep prices low while maintaining profits and keeping the pitchforks and torches at bay. Talk of adding an efficient combined-cycle natural gas plant will draw pitchforks…
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Residential Demand Charges; Harpooning Red Herring

By Energy Rant No Comments
On the one hand, this article from Utility Dive, The flaws in the utilities’ push for residential demand charges, had me shaking my head left and right in disagreement. On the other, not so much considering Solar City’s Chief Policy Officer co-authored the article. The article suggests that rather than using demand charges for residential customers, whether they generate renewable energy (solar) or not, utilities should use time-of-use rates instead. Time-of-use rates are a step in the right direction, but demand rates are still more equitable. Electricity Bills For new readers, here is a quick overview of various ways utilities…
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Utilities: A Formula for Contraction

By Energy Efficiency, Energy Rant, Utility Stuff 3 Comments
In the Energy Rant, I cover subjects I know well, subjects I don’t know well but can analyze with bookends and say, “that will never fly”, and things I don’t know well.  It takes viscera, and that’s what I’m covering this week – not bowels, but utility rates impacted by energy efficiency. Utilities are in business to make money, like every other business.  Let’s establish that making money or being profitable means revenue exceeds costs.  Costs consist of long-term capital-intensive investments in poles, wires, and power plants; and operating costs including pesky employees, coal, natural gas, uranium, U.S. mail, trucks,…
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