creeping along

[Carolyn Branagan]

The legislature is creeping towards the end of the first year of the biennial session. If   May 7 really will be the adjournment day,  then there are 3 must pass bills still to go: the Miscellaneous Tax  Bill,  the  FY12  budget  and the single payer health care bill. The  first two bills were voted out of the Senate late last week. With significant changes made from House versions, both are certainly headed for conference  committee. Debate on the  single payer health care bill  began in  the  halls of the statehouse on Monday this week and Vermonters can expect more fireworks as it gets closer to a vote.

Last week, the Ways & Means Committee voted out H456, a proposal that would provide an option for developers of solar energy projects to take cash grants in instead  of the tax credits that  were  originally  offered. This was all part of the solar tax credit program that I  wrote  about  at  length  last year at the very end of the session.  It  was  extremely  controversial.  By providing a choice of either a cash grant or a tax credit, developers could  choose the option that would be most financially advantageous to their business. The fact that the plan left the state's Clean Energy Development Fund with less money for future renewable energy projects didn't seem to register with supporters of the proposal. I voted 'no' on H456 and it's likely I'll continue to vote that way for most of the next two weeks.

If you want some common sense, contact me at cbranagan@leg.state.vt.us

Rep. Carolyn Branagan
Franklin-1, Fairfax/Georgia
Vermont House  of Representatives

[rod anode]

why is the state even involved in this business? i really wish i could come down there and slap some heads around

[cedarman]

The state gov. is involved in supporting "renewable" "green" energy financially because:

THEY want to eliminate VT Yankee and cut VT's in-state power supply by 30%;

Without SOMETHING to replace part of the energy lost from Yankee, the state of the state will continue to decline due to high power rates pushing more businesses out of state/out of business;

State permitting processes are SOOO overly cumbersome and time consuming that MOST developers wouldn't consider building ANY energy projects without a financial incentive from the state (developer of the states largest solar project said in an interview that  it took about 8 months for permitting, and 4-5 months to build);

and the list goes on

[Norton]

the state of the state will continue to decline due to high power rates pushing more businesses out of state/out of business

I'm not necessarily in favor of that legislation, but this claim of driving businesses out of state because of electric rates, although widely believed and repeated, is very questionable.

The Northeast has the highest electric rates in the country, so it is true that if you compare our rates to states far away, ours are higher.  But....

Our electric rates are lower than New Hampshire.
Our electric rates are lower than Massachusetts.
Our electric rates are lower than New York.
Our electric rates are lower than Connecticut.
Our electric rates are lower than New Jersey.
Our electric rates are lower than Rhode Island.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table5_6_a.html

Regarding Vermont Yankee, the current offer from Entergy is to supply about 10-12% of our power at market rates if they are relicensed.  In other words, a much smaller amount of power than they currently provide to us, at a much higher rate which is no cheaper than several other options.

The electricity in Vermont is cheaper than almost all our neighbors.  It will go up, but the increase doesn't really depend on whether VY is relicensed or not.  The power is available from other sources at about the same price, so the decision whether to relicense VY will have very little impact on electric rates in VT.

 

[cedarman]

I always like to see information presented.  Sometimes, I question how it is gathered, summarized and reported.

I have several co-workers in Northern NY who are paying 11 cents/kwh or less.

[Norton]

I always like to see information presented.  Sometimes, I question how it is gathered, summarized and reported.

In this case, the info is all public information and pretty easily gathered, also easy to verify.  That particular chart is created by the DOE department responsible for compliling those numbers and making them available.  It's probably healthy to question any source, but I think in this case the info is pretty reliable.  If you have another source that you think is more reliable, I'd love to hear about it.

And if there are any documented cases of businesses leaving Vt primarily because of electric rates, I'd be interested in that too.  I'm not convinced it's happening, although I will grant that some energy-intensive operations would logically locate in areas of the country where rates are lower.  But I don't think we can do much about that.  We would have to cut our rates in half to match what costs are in some states, and there's no way we can do that.  What we can do is keep them as low as possible given the regional realities, and I think we're already doing a pretty good job of that (not perfect, of course).

I have several co-workers in Northern NY who are paying 11 cents/kwh or less.

That's not surprising, there are lots of different rates.  Some folks pay more than average, some less.  Those state averages take into account different utilities, different rate structures, etc., so there are always some folks paying more than average and some less.  In New York, the somewhat lower rates in some areas are offset by higher rates elsewhere, including NYC, which has rather high rates in camparison to most other areas in the state.  Similarly, in Vt the rates you pay depend on the utility (among other things), so for example if you are a Vt Electric Coop customer you probably pay more than the Vt average.  Most Fairfax residents are on CVPS, which has rates that are about average for Vt.


Here's another way of thinking about electric costs.  An average human being can put out about 200 watts if they are working hard.  For instance, if you were to climb on a bicycle-powered generator and pedal really hard for about 5 hours, you could generate about 1 kilowatt-hour of electricity.  That amount of power costs less than 10 cents (retail, national average.  In Vt, about 13 cents).  Remarkably cheap, really.

[Norton]

you could generate about 1 kilowatt-hour of electricity.  That amount of power costs less than 10 cents (retail, national average.  In Vt, about 13 cents).  Remarkably cheap, really.

Oops, my mistake.  It's not 13 cents average in Vt, it's 13.7 cents as of Jan 2011.