Utilities are among the few remaining large companies that are relatively solvent and profitable. Harnessing their might to offer retrofits for all would be a powerful step toward economic stimulus.
But most utilities in Cascadia are conflicted about helping their customers save energy. On the one hand, they’re legally obligated to do it. On the other hand, if they do it successfully, they don’t make as much money.
Resolving this conflict in favor of conservation requires an innovative form of utility regulation called “decoupling.” A decoupled utility makes profits not in proportion to its sales but in proportion to its success in advancing efficiency. (Decoupled utilities, furthermore, have nothing to fear from comprehensive, auctioned cap-and-trade with built-in protections for working families.)
In recent years, Cascadian utilities and utility regulators have been making stepwise progress on decoupling. Oregon’s two big natural gas companies—NW Natural and Cascade—are decoupled, as is the natural gas division of Spokane-based Avista. California decoupled all its utilities in one sweeping move a few years ago. Perhaps more surprisingly, since March of 2007, Idaho Power has operated under the most progressive decoupling rules in Cascadia. You heard me: Idaho Power.
Oregon’s electric companies and most of Washington’s utilities operate under the conflicted old rules. But we may see progress soon. At present, the Oregon Public Utility Commission is considering a proposal from Portland General Electric to decouple its electric rates. If the commission approves PGE’s proposal, then Oregon’s other big electric utility PacifiCorps probably will follow.
Then we’ll need action from Washington and British Columbia.
Decoupling is an ideologically neutral innovation that helps save energy, lower customer bills, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and unlock green-collar jobs. Interestingly, in both Washington and British Columbia, decoupling is getting held up by the right of the political spectrum. BC’s center-right climate champion Premier Gordon Campbell has yet to follow his ideological soul mate Arnold Schwarzenegger and decouple utility profits from sales. In Washington, whose Puget Sound Power & Light once led the continent on decoupling (before the wave of deregulation ended all that in the mid-1990s), center-right Attorney General Rob McKenna—or his office—has been a consistent obstacle to decoupling, whenever it’s proposed before the Transportation and Utilities Commission. Perhaps decoupled California’s Republican governor—or just about any elected official in deep red Idaho—could put in calls to the premier and the AG?
Climate change and God
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stopgreenpath Posted 5:20 am
22 Dec 2008
the answer is in CLOSELY linking consumption, point of use generation, environmental harm, and pricing, not the opposite. decoupling starts with an inappropriate deference to Big Energy profit margins which does not exist in the marketplace. we do not need to plead, cajole, subsidize, guarantee and otherwise enslave ourselves to Big Energy profits, but extreme deference is the order of the day.
seriously, what will they do if our legislators simply said "we have grown up, we are joining the 21st century and you can no longer externalize the costs of doing business onto ratepayers, taxpayers and the environment?" you really think they will shut down? of course not. they will develop a MODERN business plan that uses our grid as a load-balancing, billing and distribution network (more like the internet) rather than a one-way, dead end pyramid scheme where more and more nature "must" be destroyed to accommodate more and more profits.
the answer lies in simply changing the paradigm so that every property owner can become a renewable power generator and the utilities can not. it's a different kind of decoupling, more like the anti-trust type (vertical dis-intergration) than the "guaranteed profits even if consumption greatly increases while the foxes are guarding the henhouse" type.
long-term feed in tariff contracts are much more affordable for ratepayers, more conducive towards conservation, allow for profit margins for utilities, create better skilled local jobs, provide economic stimulus and alleviate the need for massive, wasteful, expensive, wilderness-killing power plants and power lines.
i, for one, don't feel that enormous, guaranteed, subsidized Big Utility profits are sacrosanct. we just need someone with some courage to stand up for us.
the greenest energy is that which you needn't ever produce.
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