Editor Note: Captive customers of franchised, monopolistic utilities should decide for themselves whether or not to participate in so-called demand-side management (energy conservation) programs. Jim Clarkson of Resource Supply Management Company filed testimony to this effect as part of Georgia Power Company’s 2019 Integrated Resource Plan.

Comes now, Resource Supply Management and shows the Commission that participation in Georgia Power’s Demand Side Measures (“DSM”) programs should be voluntary:

• One way to provide a little relief to ratepayers from the cost of Vogtle is to allow customers to op-out of Demand Side Measures instituted by Georgia Power and approved by the Public Service Commission along with the associated surcharges on customer bills. These energy efficiency programs are supposed to reduce customer use of electricity, which is the last thing Georgia Power needs to do in their current situation.

Dear Diary,

I just had a wonderful day creating economic development and protecting the people of our good state.

The day started normally with a power company’s chief lobbyist showing up at my office with Starbucks, a bouquet of flowers, and a box of chocolates. He is such a good friend. He says he even thinks of me as a father figure!

The latest stack of consumer complaints was on my desk, and we spent awhile laughing at them. People can be so silly!

Then I got down to business. A man who gave $250 to my election campaign wants electricity for his fishing shack down on the river. He and his drinking buddies spend a few weekends there a year. The power company says it will take more than $50,000 to run power through the swamp, and they want him to pay for it.…

“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).…