What You And Your Power Company Have In Common
Posted on: 10 September 2015
Just as you struggle to ensure that those who are within your care, are adequately provided for, the companies that supply your home with the electric power for cooling relief in the summer and comfortable warmth in the winter, also feel an obligation to sufficiently serve the more than 140 million customers in the U.S. who are on the grid. However, the cost of supplying more than 920 kWh of electricity per month to the average household has been steadily increasing over the past few years and while that has trickled down to hit your pockets, at an average of between 7¢ and 14¢ per kWh, the financial concerns of these companies have also steadily increased.
So the next time you look at what appears to be another stretch in your budget, when the electric bill arrives, consider these other ways in which you and electric company suffer a similar plight.
Change is coming
Whether or not you have spent the past few years being concerned about carbon emissions, greenhouse gases and the continued upward trend of climate change, changes are being wrought on a national and global scale that have and will affect your daily life, just as they have the utility companies. In fact, new regulations are set to reduce the use of fossil fuels, which were used to produce up to 85 percent of the electricity across the country. Since the burning of fossil fuels to generate electricity accounts for approximately 38 percent of the total U.S. carbon emissions, this appears to be a good move by the EPA.
However, this means that while you have to concern yourself with complying to energy-efficiency programs, power companies across 30 states have been given the mandate to implement renewable energy solutions to replace the 60 gigawatts of energy capacity that will be lost when the over 2 dozen coal generating units are decommissioned in the coming year. As the expense of generating power rises, so will consumer electricity rates.
And then there are taxes
The EPA recently suggested that there should be a tax on carbon emissions as a means of securing compliance with the Clean Power Plan to cut carbon emissions. This could come into effect as early as 2018. On a superficial level, this might seem to be a way to get money back from the power plants, but on further inspection this possible tax could reach both you, in your everyday life, and the big businesses. In fact, it might be even more exacting for you as an individual since the average American (who is conserving) is estimated to emit about 8.5 tons of carbon dioxide per year, more than twice that of other individuals globally.
Unfortunately, the possibility also exists that states that do not produce a plan for this implementation may find themselves stuck with a federal alternative that could possibly not be good for either your lifestyle or the business of electricity provision. So while you recognize the political capacity of energy as a selling point to vote in the federal, state and local elections, remember that your power company and you do have similar concerns.
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