Utilities

From today's News-Gazette:

Faced with skeptical council members and many questions about how it would work, city staff asked for – and received – city council approval Tuesday to define a proposal more clearly to require that garbage containers be screened.

City Manager Steve Carter suggested the move late into Tuesday night's study session, saying the proposal "probably deserves some additional thought by staff."

Lots of good questions in the article.

From the Daily Southtown, and dealing mostly with water rates in the suburbs:

Illinois American Water, a private utility that has the distinction of charging the highest rates in the state for water, is asking the Illinois Commerce Commission for another rate hike and for approval to keep money for water that was never used by its customers.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan contends that the utility instead ought to cut its rates by millions of dollars.

Discuss.

I know that AT&T's U-Verse video service hasn't gotten great reviews.  But at this point, I'm desperate for any sort of competition for local cable monopolies.

AT&T plans to install 100 utility cabinets throughout the city to bring video services to many residents.

The telephone giant has already obtained city permits to install 33 of the cabinets, which will link new fiber optic cable with traditional copper telephone wire to provide video services similar to those of cable television.

"I think they're doing installation right now," said Deputy City Attorney Trisha Crowley. She was unable to say when AT&T would begin offering video services.

From today's News-Gazette:

Schweighart confirmed this morning that he and Prussing had discussed the issue. He said he now favors exploring purchasing local assets of the water company through eminent domain, and he said that a joint council meeting on the issue "is a possibility."

"We're already paying more than publicly owned water systems, and it just seems there's no stopping them," Schweighart said. "It's at least worth investigating the possibility of using eminent domain to take over."

Prussing has long been a vocal critic of the water company and has been an advocate for a possible public purchase, while Schweighart has been more reluctant to pursue city ownership of the water company.

Barry Suits, network operations manager for IIllinois American Water, responded this morning that "it is very disappointing to hear Mayor Prussing and Mayor Schweighart express this intent to use government's power of eminent domain to condemn a well-run business. Our customers – the citizens of Champaign County – do not want a long, costly and divisive debate over ownership that will distract elected leaders from addressing other, more important priorities."

Suits said the company's water rates will "continue to be reasonable after the current rate case concludes," and that the community will have a new water treatment plant to meet water demand over the next 15 years.

llinois American Water is asking the Illinois Commerce Commission for a 60 percent rate increase, in part to help pay for a $51 million water treatment plant the company is building 2 miles west of Champaign. The commerce commission is expected to decide the rate case by July.

This has come up before.  Back then, I thought it was a terrible idea.  But then, the City of Champaign went out and spot-annexed and -zoned land near Fisher Bondville for a water treatment plant, at the request of Illinois-American Water.  And then, weeks later, IAWC repays Champaign for that huge favor by announcing a 60 percent rate increase - in order to pay for said water treatment plant.

Normally, I wouldn't be in favor of cities using eminent domain to seize private assets like a water company.  Normally, I would argue that the public entities cannot run a private enterprise as efficiently and effectively as a profit-motivated company.  But IAWC's actions in this case are certainly making me rethink that - at least in this specific case.

From the News-Gazette:

During the presentation, water company officials reiterated their need for the water rate increase, which is expected to be decided by the commerce commission by July.

Illinois American Water needs more income for the $51 million water treatment plant the company is building 2 miles west of Champaign, said Barry Suits, network operations manager for the water company.

"We can't make a $51 million investment without an impact on local rates," said Suits, who said work on the plant began last August and the facility should be operational by the end of this year. The plant will be able to treat up to 15 million gallons of water per day and can expand to 20 million gallons.

The treatment plant will be the company's third in Champaign-Urbana and the first new one since 1960.

The new plant accounts for 48 percent of the proposed rate increase, while 52 percent is due to increased operations and maintenance costs, plus $12.8 million in capital investments the company has made since the last rate increase in 2003, Suits said.

He said $6.5 million of the treatment plant costs is not reflected in the rate increase request and that reimbursement eventually will have to be sought in a future rate increase request.

For the average residential customer using 6,000 gallons of water per month, the 60 percent water rate increase would mean paying $13.81 more per month, Suits said. As Champaign County customers are billed bimonthly, that would mean a $27.62 increase in their water bills received six times a year.

Every year our elected leadership passes on the opportunity to actually give us something for nothing and darken our lives and finances for another year. From late October to late April we become denizens of darkness, wishing for more rods and big ears. Hoot, Hoot.....squeek........ Thanks to our leadership we get to practice nocturnal habits at our expense. "Fall Back" and be counted on to make Amerens rich.

Daylight Savings Time is exactly that, it saves us daylight at the end of our working day. Saving daylight means we do not have to pay Amerens for fake and damned expensive daylight. Our razor minded leaders make us lose one hour of free light and replace it with a kilowatt hour of fake light. You remember what a kilowatt is, don't you? That is the unit Amerens uses to charge us for electricity we use.

How could we forget that these same razor minds caused us to suffer ten years of gentle rate hikes in one swift moment. They say they have worked out a "deal" to help us. Some deal, what does it amount to? 3% maybe, and I have not seen my 3% yet, so right now, the deal is another of the leaderships "pig in a poke".

What's that you say?

"Come on, Rex, we all know you don't save daylight, that hour of daylight just moves to the morning from the evening." So we don't save anything.

Au contraire, mon frair, here is the way it works. During the work day, an average family is awake and uses lights during the Fall, Winter and Spring from about 6 AM to 10 PM. BUT it doesn't matter if the hour of daylight is in the morning, because we all get up and turn on the lights in the morning and use them until we leave for work or school at 8 AM. Lets keep a running total of our home hours with the lights on. That is CST 2 hr., DST 2 hr.

The lights are off at our homes while we work and always on at work from 8 AM to 5 PM so that is 0 hr. The running total remains, CST - 2 hr., DST - 2 hr.

But when we get home at 5 PM, and it is our legislators beloved CST, it is dark and we turn on the lights. But with DST it is still light and we do not turn on the lights for another hour, or around 6 PM. So until we turn out the lights at 10 PM the running total is: CST 5-6, 1 hr., 6-7, 1 hr., 7-8, 1 hr., 8-9, 1 hr. and 9-10 1 hr. or 5 hours of paying Amerens for lights with CST. But with DST, 5-6 is 0 hours, the rest remains the same, or 4 hours. So the running totals are:

CST - 2 + 5 = 7 hr. and DST 2+4 = 6 hr.

So the average family saves 1 hour out of the 7 or 14% on their electric light usage by simply not "Falling Back", but it gets even better. First, because of the difficulty of driving after dark (CST), especially when streets are wet or glaring, most workers go directly home, and turn on the lights instead for doing errands. Errands are put off until the weekend, during the day (when we do not use lights anyway) We are wasting that hour during our weekend daylight time when we are not burning lights anyway.

But if it is still light (DST), we are inclined to run some errands in that extra hour of daylight and have the weekends open for other things. It is hard to get home by dark, so we usually do not get home until 6:30 PM or so. THEN we turn on the lights, so we have saved another 1/2 hour of paying Amerens for fake light. (So on errand days on DST, we save 1-1/2 hr over 7 hr or 21%)

Let's say Amerens makes $500,000,000 for that CST time period, 14% of that is $70 million. Our legislators make us pay Amerens $70 million dollars. That makes me "Fall Back".

But wait, there is even more. For workers who work outside during the day, there is a substantial increase in efficiency with DST. Here's how it works.

During CST when workers arrive, it is usually dark and again, they turn on the lights and begin to lay out their work and working tools. That usually takes around an hour or so and after they commence work, when there is enough light, they turn off any lights and work. But at the end of the day, because it is getting dark sooner, they start to pick up their tools and store their work about an hour or so before quitting time. It is very hard to find tools in the dark, so picking them up saves buying others or timespent searching for them in the dark. They become 1 hour less efficient 1/8 = 12%

But during DST, the morning light usage is still the same, because it is dark when they get there and that time spent laying out tools and work is the same as CST with the lights on. BUT at the end of the day, they usually wait until about 15 min before quitting to pick up. It is light and they can see and find the tools and work product and it will not be dark for another hour. .25/8 = 3%. Rarely is there overtime work during CST time, can't see, but sometimes it happens with DST.

So workers are 9% less efficient because our legislators make them "Fall Back". Less efficient = more cost. More cost = higher retail prices. Thanks to our razor minded legislators, we suffer this every year.

Want a break from higher electricity costs that is real? Want to do something with your money besides pay Amerens? Want to be able to do some errands during the week without driving both ways in the dark? Want construction and other outside labor jobs to be easier and more efficient? Want to actually get something free?

Ask our legislators to just let us enjoy some free light for a change and dump the CST idea. I like the idea of having daylight after work and saving money. Obviously saving money is a foreign idea to our legislators.

The News-Gazette today reported that you can now get energy credits in Illinois.

Illinoisans who buy solar panels, wind generators or other types of renewable energy equipment can now get a little more bang for their buck.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich recently signed legislation creating a statewide net-metering program, which means customers can use excess power they generate through such equipment as a credit against electricity they buy from their utility company. In a year when electricity rates jumped significantly, that could make a big difference in a customer's bill.

Ameren apparently didn't offer this before, but says they're not opposed to it. It'll be interesting to see how many people make the conversion. If I didn't have a huge big shady tree on the east side of my house, thereby limiting that side's exposure to sunlight, it would be a lot more attractive to me. Maybe if I put them on top of the garage?