The Virginian-Pilot
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The first significant jump in the region’s electricity bills in more than a decade will kick in Tuesday, now that state regulators have approved Dominion Virginia Power’s fuel rate increase.
The State Corporation Commission gave Dominion the go-ahead Friday to raise its fuel rate to 3.893 cents per kilowatt-hour, up from 2.232 cents. For residential customers using 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity per month, bills will rise by $16.61, or about 18 percent . Some commercial customers will pay more than 40 percent more.
The change will bring the power company, based in Richmond, an additional $1.1 billion in the next 12 months. It addresses recent spikes in energy prices.
The “fuel factor” covers Dominion’s costs to buy the coal, natural gas, oil and uranium that fire power plants. State law allows the company to apply annually to adjust the rate and to pass those costs directly to ratepayers, with no markup for profit.
At the new rate, the fuel factor represents about 35 percent of the total charges on a resident’s monthly bill. Dominion’s base rates to procure and deliver power to customers hadn’t changed since 1999.
The commission directed Dominion to take certain steps to keep its fuel expense – and future rate increases – as minimal as possible. For example, regulators called for an audit to ensure that the fuel Dominion buys from its affiliate companies, which operate unregulated, doesn’t cost more than market prices. Dominion plans to spend almost $600 million for fuel from those sister subsidiaries owned by parent company Dominion Resources Inc., the commission indicated.
Dominion also must file reports that show it is selling as much excess power as “reasonably” possible back into the marketplace when it has more electricity than it needs to serve its customers, the commission ruled. Under state law, the company must credit 75 percent of the profits from those sales back to its customers.
More than 40 consumers, as well as the cities of Suffolk and Virginia Beach, wrote to the commission to oppose the increase. Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., also sent a letter expressing his concerns about creating additional financial pressure on low-income families and businesses.
“We recognize the impact higher fuel prices will have on our customers,” read a Dominion statement released in response to the commission’s decision. “We will do everything we can to minimize the effect through increasing efficiencies, expanding conservation programs and helping those who need it through EnergyShare and budget billing.”
The company said it would contribute an additional $5 million to the EnergyShare program, which assists low-income residents with their heating and cooling bills. Dominion also will make it easier for customers to switch to budget billing – which divides their total annual electricity costs into a steady monthly amount – by enrolling them automatically when they pay the budget amount listed on their bills.
Carolyn Shapiro, (757) 446-2270, carolyn.shapiro@pilotonline.com
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Orion
Have you actually ever tried to use the computers at the public library? The last two times I was at the library (Virginia Beach Central), the first time it was down, the second, it took a clean 10 minutes just to pull up the Virginia Beach Public Library website. Something tells me using those computers for anything urgent or necessary would be an exercise in dissapointment, and futility.
Methane Power
How about alternate resources such as methane power? Cities nationwide have invested in power plants that use the energy from methane gas to power up facilities, homes, etc. Hampton Roads has such an abundant and endless supply of garbage. Garbage, if you're not aware, emits methane into our atmosphere having adverse affects to the environment. Methane is highly explosive and the major component of natural gas. Why not tap into this somewhat 'free' resource to either supplement or replace the current way we fuel our power plants.
Jay and joanie
France gets approximately 80 percent of their electricity from nuclear power plants. The United States gets 18 percent from nuclear. We should have been building nuclear plants for the past 30 years regardless of the tree huggers.
4,500 watts of photo voltaic power is barely enough to provide minimum electrical service to a single home, and it will not even begin to run an air conditioner. A typical electric hot water heater uses 4,500 watts when the elements are activated. From a cost standpoint, I don't believe it's practical to retrofit to photo voltaic cells unless you plan to live in the house for many, many years. However, if the price of electricity doubles, like gas has, photo voltaic may become an option worth considering.
Does anyone know if it is
Does anyone know if it is possible or feasible for neighbors to "share" solar panels. The cost split among 3 or 4 people would not be as bad. This would be easy to do on condos, townhouses, and apartment buildings.
Stop whining
I suspect that all of you who are whining about the raise, would also be the first to whine when we have rolling brown-outs in the years to come because the electrical infrastructure could not be maintianed, let alone increased. Stop whining and fight for expansion of renewable energy. Get the politicians to tie future expansion, tax breaks or rate increases to increases in renewable energy sources, including nuclear. If France can use nuclear for 100% of their energy, without problem, why can't we? If you really face thousands of dollars in increased electric costs, how about being a community leader, instead of a community whiner and set the example by adding or converting to alternative energy where possible, such as solar. Another trend to reduce electric costs are gardens on top of flat roofed buildings. The dirt, grass, and gardening on the top of a roof (usually high rises and indu
We need to have a Party,
Everybody on a certain day turn on everything electric at a certain time, irons, heating blankets, blenders, etc… wait a few and then shut it down, see how many things get screwed up. I have been told by a power company rep., that they will be fined a million a day when power is out. That is why they are so busy cutting trees and replacing lines and transformers. We get to pay for it in advance. I kept smelling a gas leak, finally they came out dug in my yard and fixed a nice size hole, some of the biggest worms I have ever seen were in that dirt. Then they replaced a union at their side of my meter that had a hole even bigger. They said everything else was on my side. I quickly got a soapy solution and sprayed every joint and connection inside the house and outside. When it comes to Having Cox cable, get Direct tv not Dish. Dish has problems, I had them for a year and then got Direct, big difference, I called dish nin
Photo voltaic cells
I have a gas powered back up generator rated at 4,500 watts continuous. It will run a few lights, a TV, a few fans, and the refrigerator, enough to get by on until power is restored.
According to my cursory research, it would take 369 square feet (think 20 feet by 20 feet, roughly) of photo voltaic cells to produce approximately 4,500 watts of power on a full sun day, and the cells alone would cost about $24,000 dollars. That doesn't include any material needed for installation or the cost of installation.
A geothermal, closed loop heat pump can be installed for a lot less, and with a SEER equivalent of 23, it cuts the heating and air conditioning costs in half. It does help to have R-40 in the attic and high efficiency windows, but I figure that I save over $1400 annually on my heating/air conditioning costs compared to my neighbors in similar sized homes who have air to air heat pumps.
re: Orion
coolguy81 wrote:
Thats a whole lot to assume. Not everyone crying about the squeeze of EVERYTHING is in possession of all, or even any, of those luxuries.
Granted, however if they are here, posting, they are probably spending money on things (luxuries) they don't, absolutely, need.
...have you ever tried to apply for a job recently? It is luck if you find one that doesnt require you to email your resume, or fill out something on their website.
Give me a break, if you have to have the internet for a job search/application, you can go to any public library; you can do anything there you want to do at home.
Well, almost anything...
I understand why you folks
I understand why you folks are mad, but who did you think was going to pay for the raising fuel prices? Everyone is passing it on to the next consumer down the line. If you were a farmer, wouldn't you have to raise your prices to pay for your costs? Do thing that even a monopoly can crap their own coal?
Stop whining and come up with solutions. We used to be a country of inventors!
markk33831:
Are you saying that our representatives in the General Assembly are the best that money can buy??
I wondered about that when I saw that the State Senator who wrote the deregulation legislation for Dominion and the re-regulation legislation was a hunting buddy of the CEO of Dominion, and when I saw all the money that Dominion had spread around to members of the GA. Of course, we all know that our representatives in Richmond aren't beholden to campaign contributions which enable them to stay in power. Right.