3 ms·

It sounds like your city was overprovisioned in terms of how much electricity they could supply, and you had the benefit of the cheapest power around (hydroelec

It sounds like your city was overprovisioned in terms of how much electricity they could supply, and you had the benefit of the cheapest power around (hydroelectric power is very cheap), so when you got plugged into the wider network that the power company was servicing, you got screwed. There's a good chance that power for neighboring towns got cheaper and/or more reliable after the deal given what happened with your power. The town must have either been in huge financial trouble or on a privatization kick.

sidewndr46 2y ago
its extremely unlikely that a town in Michigan was not connected to the Eastern grid
- pclmulqdq 2y ago
  Whether they were connected and whether they were selling the power are two different questions.
s1mplicissimus 2y ago
Your conclusion is a false dichotomy. A third option is that shareholders of the private company fattened up their profit margins.
maxerickson 2y ago
One potential reason I can come up with is the dam aging and becoming a liability. The town may also have been putting other revenues towards the electric utility (so losing money on the service and billing). It was probably just a mistake though. My town charges about $0.11 per kwh, with a fixed monthly service fee making the effective rate for a small user closer to $0.20.
- fooqux 2y ago
  I think you're spot on. Damn failures are on the rise, and usually it's due to the simple fact that maintenance is expensive and everything has a shelf life. A lot of these dams were built during the same time period and the cost to replace / maintain the aging infrastructure is tough for small communities to swallow. And they're all coming due at roughly the same time. Selling to a larger company who hopefully has the capital to fix them seems like a bargain when compared to the cost of replacing a hydro dam (or even replacing it with a non-electric generating dam). Of course, that does come at a cost, and it's probably spread across all rate payers.

sidewndr46 2y ago

its extremely unlikely that a town in Michigan was not connected to the Eastern grid

pclmulqdq 2y ago
Whether they were connected and whether they were selling the power are two different questions.

s1mplicissimus 2y ago

Your conclusion is a false dichotomy. A third option is that shareholders of the private company fattened up their profit margins.

maxerickson 2y ago

One potential reason I can come up with is the dam aging and becoming a liability. The town may also have been putting other revenues towards the electric utility (so losing money on the service and billing). It was probably just a mistake though. My town charges about $0.11 per kwh, with a fixed monthly service fee making the effective rate for a small user closer to $0.20.

fooqux 2y ago
I think you're spot on. Damn failures are on the rise, and usually it's due to the simple fact that maintenance is expensive and everything has a shelf life. A lot of these dams were built during the same time period and the cost to replace / maintain the aging infrastructure is tough for small communities to swallow. And they're all coming due at roughly the same time. Selling to a larger company who hopefully has the capital to fix them seems like a bargain when compared to the cost of replacing a hydro dam (or even replacing it with a non-electric generating dam). Of course, that does come at a cost, and it's probably spread across all rate payers.