Posted on 03/11/2015 6:30:40 PM PDT by MichCapCon
Electricity choice in Michigan is under attack again this year. The two big utility companies are investing heavily in an advertising campaign and contract research. Ultimately, they’d like to eliminate market competition and force all consumers to buy only their electricity. The facts are, however, that electricity choice in Michigan has a track record of driving down rates, and electricity consumers will be worse off if the state enlarged the utilities’ monopoly.
Michigan first authorized a choice program with Public Act 141 of 2000. At the time, Michigan’s electricity rates were higher than the national average and higher than any nearby state. Click to enlarge Michigan soon saw the benefits of its choice program. Over the next eight years, electricity rates rose nationally, but less in Michigan compared to the Great Lakes states and the country as a whole. By 2008, the last year in which Michigan had a full choice program, Michigan rates were more competitive with rates in nearby states and had dropped below the national average. Click to enlarge Michigan’s choice program was largely ended in 2008. A new law capped choice at 10 percent of electricity sales, so the big utilities were guaranteed 90 percent of the electricity market. The cap was filled in only a few months, and today electricity consumers seeking an alternative to the utilities were placed on a waiting list. Currently almost twice as many customers are seeking alternative electricity providers than are participating in the choice program. Michigan rates quickly became less competitive after the cap was imposed. By 2009, Michigan had soared back above the national average. Michigan electricity customers now pay more than customers in any of the surrounding states, and 6 percent more than the national average. Today Michigan residents, employers, and the state economy as a whole are paying a high price for protecting the monopoly status of its large utilities.
I think my Co-op must use wormy kilowatts.
About ever few days the power goes off and then comes back on. Not a huge problem but I have to go around and reset everything including clocks.
I have battery backups for my 2 alarm clocks.
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Do you living in an area that has a lot of trees?
Yes there are trees everywhere.
That just might be part of the problem. They do come around and trim them every now and then.
Texas went from a PUC to free wheeling electric companies. The result was rates going from some of the lowest to some are the highest.
Our rates are not too bad. My last bill was $171 which is the largest I have ever had. It is typically around $120, tho in the Spring and Fall I sometimes go below $100.
My heat and AC are all electric.
The power going off and immediately back on is circuit breakers I guess.
Texas electric rates are far from the highest.
Texas wasn’t even the top 50% for electric rates last year.
http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/xls/table_5_06_b.xlsx
Probably a reclosurer switch, functions a lot like a circuit breaker.
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