“We are accustomed to seeing news coverage of tearful hurricane victims praising the heroic utility workers who restore their electrical service. Not so heroic is the way the utility accountants are booking that expense in a way that gives huge future streams of profits to the poor storm-victim utility.”
Over the years, the procedures for state-level utility rate cases have evolved into a pretty standard set of formulas and estimating methods.
Most states use a future “test year” where the utility estimates its revenue and costs for an upcoming period. Naturally, the utility will low-ball the projected revenue to justify asking for a higher level of revenue through rates approved by the regulators. Costs in the model year will be overstated as much as the utility thinks they can get away with.…
“Government-orchestrated retail competition in electricity largely failed. With that failure came the return of regulatory-mandated, utility-administered wasteful energy efficiency programs. This time the programs carried the added justification of countering global warming.”
Prior to the oil shocks of the 1970s, energy was just another input in the management of capital, labor and other operating costs. Tradeoffs were made between energy costs and capital spent to increase efficiency. During the natural turnover of capital equipment, energy efficiency improved along with productivity, quality and waste reduction. Effective energy use was a technical matter where efficiency had to make economic sense.
Oil and gas shortages in the 1970s were caused by government price controls, but the news media hyped the concept of “running out” of resources. This brought politics into the use of energy, an example of how the problems from government intervention can breed more intervention.…
[Ed. Note: The author, an energy-management consultant and a classical liberal, is an active voice for free-market energy policy in the Southeastern US. He is also a board director of the Institute for Energy Research (IER) and its advocacy arm, the American Energy Alliance.
The December 2016 filing below was followed by an agreement between the Georgia Public Service Commission and Georgia Power Company that allowed GPC recovery of $1.55 billion in cost overruns regarding the 2,240 MW two-unit Vogtle nuclear project. (The plant’s original cost estimate of $14 billion is currently at $18 billion, a 28 percent overage.)
Mr. Clarkson has critically written on the Vogtle project since 2012, Politics and the Nation’s Next Nuclear Plant (Georgia Power’s boondoggle under construction). Subsequent posts by Clarkson have been written in 2013; 2014; 2015 (here, here, here, and here); and 2016 (here and here).…