(From the Missouri Public Service Commission)The Missouri Public Service Commission has established the deadline for those wishing to intervene and participate in an electric rate case filed by The Empire District Electric Company d/b/a Liberty.
Applications to intervene and participate in this case must be filed no later than June 22, 2021, with the Secretary of the Missouri Public Service Commission, P.O. Box 360, Jefferson City, Missouri 65102, or by using the Commission’s Electronic Filing and Information System (EFIS) at www.psc.mo.gov .
Individual citizens wishing to comment should contact either the Office of the Public Counsel (Governor Office Building, 200 Madison Street, Suite 650, P.O. Box 2230, Jefferson City, Missouri 65102-2230, telephone (866) 922-2959, email opcservice@opc.mo.gov) or the Public Service Commission Staff (P.O. Box 360, Jefferson City, Missouri 65102, telephone 1-800-392-4211, email pscinfo@psc.mo.gov). The Office of the Public Counsel is a separate state agency that represents the general public in matters before the Commission.
On May 28, 2021, Liberty filed an electric rate case with the Missouri Public Service Commission seeking to increase gross annual electric revenues by approximately $79.9 million.
Liberty serves approximately 155,400 electric customers in the Missouri counties of Barry, Barton, Cedar, Christian, Dade, Dallas, Greene, Hickory, Jasper, Lawrence, McDonald, Newton, Polk, St. Clair, Stone and Taney.
I understand that 15 below was certainly a surprise for everyone. We all knew we would have to pay more because we would use more energy. We should NOT have to pay because: 1) the company was caught off guard, 2) the company decided to build all those wind turbines, 3) the company wants to pay investors.
ReplyDeleteThose turbines are ugly, noisy, dangerous (they throw ice from the blades) and they do not help the environment because, of all things, they aren't recyclable!
Suck it up like the rest of us and quit putting up eye-sores that will become permanent burdens.
I've read in a more full account of why the company paid so much for gas while it was 15 below. In their infinite wisdom our state's ruling class has decided electrical companies can only buy natural gas for something like a half month at a time. You see, if they buy longer term, hedge against risks like the spot price going up due to a nastier winter than expected, if it goes down then heaven forbid customers will end up spending more than they would. So we're going to be paying through the nose for 13 years to cover this extreme event and there's nothing that can be done about it now.
ReplyDeleteAgreed on the wind turbines, and they also don't provide any sort of useful energy without a storage bank of some sort like batteries. The wind is not reliable, so without storage you can't depend on it for baseline or peaking power. In Texas which has its own non-Federal regulatory system because they're big enough to have their own independent stable grid, wind and solar weren't even required to pay into the system to cover peak events.
However to do anything investors are a must, another very stupid thing Missouri does along with a lot of other states is require a new system to be up and running before a utility company can start paying for it with customer money. This doomed some power plant projects in the 1980s when interest rates got very high, a big part of the debacle of the New Hampshire nuclear power plant, this doubled its cost. Again, it's supposed to protect customers in case the project fails, and as long as we're under financial repression which keeps interest rates very low not super expensive.
In Texas which has its own non-Federal regulatory system because they're big enough to have their own independent stable grid,
ReplyDeleteThe Texas grid was stable?
LMAO.
It's a good thing Texas decided to go it alone, because the idiots legislating in Texas and running the Texas grid are big on letting utility companies and power producers do what they want, and not at all interested in making sure the utility companies and power companies produce reliable and or affordable power.
About every ten years Texas has a utility disaster because no one spends the money to maker sure power plants and the natural gas production and distribution pipelines don't freeze.
When you let criminal enterprises like Enron help write your laws and keep your legislators and politicians well fed then you get what they want. Left in the cold and dark.
The fact that Texas doesn't require carbon monoxide detectors in residences cost a lot of lives. Again.
That's where republicon freedum gets you.
Enjoy paying those larger utility bills thanks to Tex@$$.
Just be thankful that the Missouri grid wasn't connected to the Texas grid because that would have put Missouri up the same brown creek without a paddle.