I Want Coal For Christmas
Last week, we got hit with a double whammy: an additional $7 million is to be added to the existing $25 million high school renovation/expansion project and the Connecticut DPUC announced that CL&P residential customers will be facing a 7.7% rate increase. Nevermind that we got hit with a 22% rate hike last year. Businesses and United Illuminating (UI) customers will get hit worse.
I won't go into the politics surrounding the high school project. I've touched on that before. Everyone agrees that something needed to be done but no one could agree on what should be done. The "let's do everything" crowd won and now I'm looking at an additional $300/yr for the next 20 years for the high school alone. Since property taxes have been rising steadily at 4-5% a year, except for the year they adjusted the mill rate and taxes went up 19.8%, I should expect a property tax bill over $6,000 this year.
A few years ago, Connecticut deregulated its utility industry. Northeast Utilities, the owner of CL&P and UI, was forced to sell off its power generation equipment. Their new role: purchasing agents for electricity. They got to keep their power transmission business (power lines). Of course, it was after deregulation that the need for electricity in lower Fairfield County became evident. Much larger power lines (345 kV) were needed and, after alot of public debate, are now being installed.
I'd say that deregulation has been a disaster. Rather than fostering competition, all CT residents have seen are rate increases. And if you want to go green, you have to pay a surchage. How does that convince people to go green?
I'm currently paying over 15 cents per kiloWatt-hour. 10.068 cents of that is power generation while 5.21 cents is transmission. I've got electric heat so bills in the winter can be brutal. We've taken steps over the years to offset these costs. I've switched as many lights as possible over to compact fluorescent bulbs (CFL). We've had new windows and garage doors installed to cut heat loss. When my washer & dryer of 13 years died, we bought new energy efficient ones. I turn off the water heater for 8 - 24 hour intervals depending on usage. I unplug our televisions when they're not going to be used for long periods of time. I keep the thermostats set in the low 60's during the day and 50's when we've all gone to bed.
To take the chill out of the house on cold nights, we burn wood. We upgraded to a soapstone wood burning stove, which is more efficient and cleaner burning than the steel one that came with the house. It's already paid for itself in heating savings. We haven't paid for wood in seven years, acquiring it for free from my tree surgeon neighbor, harvesting dead trees from our 1 acre forested yard, and helping out friends with their tree work. Yes, it's messy and time consuming, between collecting, chopping and stacking the wood and keeping the fire going, but we think that it's worth it.
So I'm left with a quandry. What else can I cut without affecting "quality of life"? The answer is: the money we put aside for home improvement projects. I already use coupons, buy stuff when it's on sale, buy no-name or generic brands if the quality is the same, and actively deny indulging in impulse purchases. If it ain' broke, I tend not to upgrade. For example, I've got 25 year old Sony Trinitron in my bedroom.
Since my wife and I aren't willing to make any cuts into our frugal lifestyle, my guess is that our home improvement pace will have to slow down. Some may argue that I should go to work, especially since my business is kaput, but that would mean putting the kids into daycare. Besides the minimum $20,000/year cost, there's the fact that neither of us believes in having our kids raised by strangers. Both of us had our Mom's at home while we were little and stable, drama free families. It was something that we valued in each other when we met. I don't fault families who need to utilize daycare because they can't afford not to have both parents work, whether for income or insurance reasons, but it's not for us. So, we'll just suck it up and vote NO, TOO HIGH on every single town budget until the kids are old enough for school and I can return to work. Oh, who am I kidding. I'll always vote NO, TOO HIGH on these town budgets.
\_/
DED
I won't go into the politics surrounding the high school project. I've touched on that before. Everyone agrees that something needed to be done but no one could agree on what should be done. The "let's do everything" crowd won and now I'm looking at an additional $300/yr for the next 20 years for the high school alone. Since property taxes have been rising steadily at 4-5% a year, except for the year they adjusted the mill rate and taxes went up 19.8%, I should expect a property tax bill over $6,000 this year.
A few years ago, Connecticut deregulated its utility industry. Northeast Utilities, the owner of CL&P and UI, was forced to sell off its power generation equipment. Their new role: purchasing agents for electricity. They got to keep their power transmission business (power lines). Of course, it was after deregulation that the need for electricity in lower Fairfield County became evident. Much larger power lines (345 kV) were needed and, after alot of public debate, are now being installed.
I'd say that deregulation has been a disaster. Rather than fostering competition, all CT residents have seen are rate increases. And if you want to go green, you have to pay a surchage. How does that convince people to go green?
I'm currently paying over 15 cents per kiloWatt-hour. 10.068 cents of that is power generation while 5.21 cents is transmission. I've got electric heat so bills in the winter can be brutal. We've taken steps over the years to offset these costs. I've switched as many lights as possible over to compact fluorescent bulbs (CFL). We've had new windows and garage doors installed to cut heat loss. When my washer & dryer of 13 years died, we bought new energy efficient ones. I turn off the water heater for 8 - 24 hour intervals depending on usage. I unplug our televisions when they're not going to be used for long periods of time. I keep the thermostats set in the low 60's during the day and 50's when we've all gone to bed.
To take the chill out of the house on cold nights, we burn wood. We upgraded to a soapstone wood burning stove, which is more efficient and cleaner burning than the steel one that came with the house. It's already paid for itself in heating savings. We haven't paid for wood in seven years, acquiring it for free from my tree surgeon neighbor, harvesting dead trees from our 1 acre forested yard, and helping out friends with their tree work. Yes, it's messy and time consuming, between collecting, chopping and stacking the wood and keeping the fire going, but we think that it's worth it.
So I'm left with a quandry. What else can I cut without affecting "quality of life"? The answer is: the money we put aside for home improvement projects. I already use coupons, buy stuff when it's on sale, buy no-name or generic brands if the quality is the same, and actively deny indulging in impulse purchases. If it ain' broke, I tend not to upgrade. For example, I've got 25 year old Sony Trinitron in my bedroom.
Since my wife and I aren't willing to make any cuts into our frugal lifestyle, my guess is that our home improvement pace will have to slow down. Some may argue that I should go to work, especially since my business is kaput, but that would mean putting the kids into daycare. Besides the minimum $20,000/year cost, there's the fact that neither of us believes in having our kids raised by strangers. Both of us had our Mom's at home while we were little and stable, drama free families. It was something that we valued in each other when we met. I don't fault families who need to utilize daycare because they can't afford not to have both parents work, whether for income or insurance reasons, but it's not for us. So, we'll just suck it up and vote NO, TOO HIGH on every single town budget until the kids are old enough for school and I can return to work. Oh, who am I kidding. I'll always vote NO, TOO HIGH on these town budgets.
\_/
DED
Labels: energy
posted by DED at 11:19 AM
6 Comments:
Welcome to the 21st Century, America style.
What can you say? Though I'd love to understand a bit more about this "deregulation" which sounds like "shifting regulation." How can you "deregulate" without fostering competition? Are the barriers to entry so high no one else can legitimately compete?
Personally, you're doing what you can I guess.
Before you can open up a power plant of any kind, you have to get permission. Most towns and neighborhoods are of the NIMBY mentality, no matter what type of power generation facility is proposed. Cities stand a better chance, but real estate is at such a premium in CT's cities that they think the property can generate better tax revenue as an office building.
The other part is at the state level. You have to petition the Siting Council to get your power plant approved. The towns and public get to voice their opinion here as well. If you get a big enough turnout, you can drown out a small fry company. Big companies usually have enough clout with the Siting Council that their opinion will carry enough weight that the towns can be ignored. However, if you get a HUGE turnout, like when CL&P wanted to put in its giant 345 kV power lines through the school district, a compromise is often reached. In this case, CL&P agreed to bury the lines around the schools, though not in the neighborhoods next door or anywhere else down the line.
The reality of dereg has been no new power plants anywhere in western CT. I think that the trash to energy PP in the Hartford area went in after dereg, but I'm not sure.
Toast can tell you that you can buy green energy (windfarm mostly) through CL&P, but it comes from outside the state. There's nothing new here.
I'm livid about the CL&P hike. I just wish Rell could figure out some way to prevent it. It's outrageous that they can keep doing this. I remember last year when my bill jumped from $90 a month to $120 a month. I hadn't heard about the hike, so I'm frantically flipping through to see if our usage had unexpectedly spiked.
Deregulation of industries where a natural monopoly -- be it via public ownership or a single, regulated business industry -- almost always produces unmitigated disaster. I wish we didn't have to keep re-learning that.
Deregulation of industries where a natural monopoly -- be it via public ownership
That should have read: "Deregulation of industries where a natural monopoly makes more sense -- be it via public ownership..."
And yeah, I've been doing the "offset" thing via Community Energy for a year or so now.
We've got a pretty long list of projects for the house, but somewhere pretty high up there is the desire to get off the grid somehow. Our house is ideally positioned for passive solar heat or PV (south-facing roof with a 45-degree pitch). Also heard a bit about geothermal heat pumps, but that sounds like a much bigger project (and investment).
Getting off the grid is a long term goal, especially since it keeps going down over here. Power outages are (on average) a monthly occurence here. I'm hoping for a wind turbine coupled with solar panels, but if fuel cells are ready by the time we are, I'll consider those as well.
As for Rell doing something, she tried. She asked the DPUC to wait, which they did, for about a week. She needs the legislature on her side to do anything. I heard that CT's legislature is now veto proof after the election so she's going to be at their mercy.
Deregulation, in every industry I can think of, has only resulted in higher costs to the consumer. But yet, the push is constantly to further deregulate. I have no idea what statistics anyone need cite to push through a dereg plan, because I doubt there is anything supportive -- aside from the support upper management in whatever firm takes over the "deregulated market" gives.
Sorry to hear about your out of control local taxes and all too. It's sick. Our city income tax just doubled, our property taxes have risen steadily, and we have little (if anything) to show for it. I'm fed up with it, but I do not know how to avoid it since anywhere in the country that I would move as an alternative place to reside is likely to suffer the same fate. ARghhhhh.
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