Dave Albo has all the answers to this.  Liberals like you want us to have commie electricity.

Albo Must Go - Albo: Saving Us From the Commies

I assure you that our expensive and unsustainable addiction to foreign oil and carbon-emission-producing fuels for electricity are far better than foreign-oil dependent and carbon-emission-producing fuels for electricty run by communists!

When will these assholes realize that the only way to cheap and affordable energy that doesn't corrupt politics and cause war and conflict in the world is through CLEAN and RENEWABLE energy?

:)

...the whole issue of Dominion charging higher rates over the last several years because of the supposed effect of deregulation and more competition---we've ALREADY been paying Dominion for "business costs" that never existed or materialized, and now they want to claim they're needing more money to pay for expensive fuels but that they won't need more because they're going to improve conservation, all in the same week that they approved the biggest new OLD DIRTY power plant in recent Virginia history?  This is ridiculous.

And I still contend the real need for the power on the grid is not coming from NoVA as they want us to believe, but to stabilize the grid further north where they will pay even more for electricity.

When on God's green earth are our leaders and industry going to get it?  When is Virginia going to get serious about REAL alternatives and REAL conservation?

I'm not holding my breath, but I sure am carefully guarding my votes.

to ensure that Greg Werkheiser beats this guy in 2009.

What would an overgrown frat boy know about life under communism?  I mean, his choices of beer would have been restricted to one variety, but surely he would have had good health insurance....yeah right, liberals just LOVE communism.  What a twirp.  He doesn't even understand the basic equation of how to solve transportation in Virginia, let alone history.

I've been to the Soviet Union in 1988 and saw the lines and talked to the people.  I wonder if Albo even knows anything about "communism"?  He seems to like to throw the word around (hilarious as politically he's at least 20 years behind the times!) but doesn't actually understand what it is if he thinks anyone who he might define as "liberal" is also a communist, by definition.

Dave Albo must have drank a little too much beer back in the day.

The Fuel Charge is a pass-through to the consumer.  It is exactly the same if you choose to get natural gas from your Local Distribution Company (LDC), in VA you still have a choice on who you buy your gas from.  The utility makes no money on the fuel, just as Natural Gas Utilities makes no money on the natural gas.  This increase recovers some of the increased fuel cost that DVP has incurred since their 2007 filing and account for the continued increase in fuel costs.  It is indisputable that all fuels consumed in the production of electricity (coal, uranium, natural gas, and oil) have increased in price dramatically over the past year.  

By law the SCC is bound to approve these increases.  And I have no problem with this section of the law or the action that the SCC took in approving these rates.  By the code:

Upon investigation of such estimates and hearings in accordance with law, the Commission shall direct each company to place in effect tariff provisions designed to recover the fuel costs determined by the Commission to be appropriate for that period, adjusted for any over-recovery or under-recovery of fuel costs previously incurred.

This I feel is the wrong thing to be skewering them about.  Your criticisms of their infrastructure, new coal plant, RPS, and influence in Richmond have nothing to do with the Fuel Charge.  If you want better infrastructure, they would have to increase base rates to pay for the capital improvement.  If you want DVP to encourage conservation more than education materials and bill inserts, you are going to have direct that by law, regulation, and some mechanism for cost recovery in their tariff.  To Dominion's influence in Richmond, they are a big fish in a small pond.  I don't know how you get people to care about utility regulation, it is pretty dry stuff.

Since not much else is being done, I think price increases are not a bad thing.  They increase the value of my energy efficiency improvements.  And for every consumer out there, higher prices increase their return on efficiency improvements.  Higher prices increase incentive to improve efficiency and conserve in a way that Virginia's historically low energy prices have not.  Last on the price point, Virginia's average retail price is 6.89 cents per kwh (source:EIA).   New York's is 15.27 cents per kwh; there are only 12 states with a lower average cost than ours.

"We will do everything we can to minimize the effect by increasing efficiencies, expanding conservation programs and helping those in need."

Liars.

This ain't too shabby.  Of course we need to see the details when their app is made public.

June 19, 2008 Dominion Virginia Power Presents Energy Conservation Plan With Significant Environmental Benefits, Customer Savings

RICHMOND, Va. - Dominion Virginia Power today presented an aggressive energy conservation plan that would produce significant environmental benefits while providing customers with substantial cost savings.

A key component of the plan is the installation of "smart grid" technologies that will enhance the electric distribution system to meet the increasing needs and expectations of customers in the 21st Century.

The smart grid will allow energy to be delivered more efficiently and will result in significant energy savings by allowing more precise control of the energy flow.  Dominion expects to invest about $600 million and replace all of its existing electric meters with Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI), capable of two-way communications, as well as additional equipment to monitor and control the electric distribution system.

...the ability of customers to monitor and control their electricity use.

Over the next 15 years the plan is expected to result in customer savings in excess of $1 billion through lower electricity use, avoiding the need for two future power stations and delaying the need for two others.

Other plan iniatives:

* Incentives for construction of energy-efficient homes

* Incentives for residential and commercial customers to install energy-efficient lighting

* Energy audits and improvements for homes of low-income customers

* Incentives for residential customers who enroll voluntarily to allow the company to cycle their air-conditioners and heat pumps during periods of peak demand (a/c load mgmt, big-time impact here folks)

* Power cost monitors that display how much electricity customers are using and at what cost. (Real-time pricing, really??)

* Incentives for residential customers to upgrade heat pumps to more efficient units or have their heat pumps maintained, or "tuned," to run more efficiently

* Incentives for commercial customers to improve the energy efficiency of their HVAC units and for agreeing to reduce demand during times of peak consumption (demand response)

* Incentives for a refrigerator turn-in program that will allow residential customers who have second refrigerators at least 20 years old to be hauled away and disposed of at no charge

* Avoid carbon dioxide emissions by about 12 million tons over 15 years, equivalent of removing more than 130,000 cars from the road.

* Additional reductions of emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and mercury are also expected.

* Electricity savings could reach equivalent of electricity used by 216,000 typical homes.

* Will allow customers to better understand and manage the energy costs of individual appliances such as air conditioners, electric strip heating and water heaters

* Will also support the integration of on-site customer generation and future plug-in hybrid vehicles.

I know its might be hard to believe that one can give 2 thumbs up to this plan.  Before we congratulation Dominion, again gotta wait till we see the app for the details.  Have a nice weekend.  

...and frankly, I don't trust Dominion as far as I can throw them.  I hope I'm wrong.

warns:

Although the Virginia City Hybrid Energy Facility will be cleaner than most coal plants, it falls far short of environmentalist expectations. Rate payers won't like it either once they figure out how much it will cost them.

I haven't seen an accounting of what impact the plant will have on Dominion's electric rates. But $1.8 billion is a lot to spend for a facility that generates only 585 megawatts, enough to power only 146,000 homes...

If you live in Dominion service territory, prepare yourself for electric shock. It's coming!

What exactly are these "incentives"?  Did last years new law allow Dominion to give us tax breaks?  That'd be a neat trick.  

There may be something here, but I find it difficult to believe that they're currently raising our rates because they don't make enough money and then they'll provide money back (in whatever form) for people to improve efficiency - which would lower consumption which would yield less money to Dominion.  I guess they can argue that by giving away money to lower consumption they don't have to invest in new infrastructure, therefore saving money.  But somehow I don't believe those numbers are going to come out in our favor.

to cover increased fuel costs.  See my comment above.  These aren't base rates.  This doesn't affect their net income (well, I think there are fuel costs incurred that they won't recover; so, that does affect their net income).

Incentives would be DVP providing reduced rates, bill credits, or the upgrade service at reduced or no charge.  This has to be filed and approved by the SCC though.  So, the details of what the incentives will be and whether they will attract any participants to these programs is still up in the air.  But all the people who participated in the stop the coal plant movement could show up to the SCC for this filing and make a case for greater efficiency and conservation.  Public support of these programs would be helpful.

...at least not to the extent they do, if they had undertaken serious energy efficiency and conservation measures years ago.

EEC are actions taken by utility customers and not the utility.  The utility can have programs that help customers do that, but the onus is on us.  DVP is not responsible for: the stellar growth in NoVA, the massive housing boom, or the number of 2000+ sq ft. air-conditioned homes that make up our slice of this great state.

Prior to the re-regulation bill, DVP's rates were capped.  What should they have done?  Begged Northern Virginians to stop buying big, power guzzling homes?  You want to blame someone about lack of EEC initiatives, the blame starts with us and the politicians who represent us.

Also, even if successful EEC programs had been implemented years ago, the cost of fuel has risen at a rate higher than EEC could have reduced demand.  So, the fuel charge would still probably be higher.  

It's up to Dominion Power to provide the incentives to consumers, then it's up to consumers to take advantage of those incentives. It's up to the politicians to impose mandatory renewable portfolio standards on Dominion, as well as to "decouple" Dominion so that it can profit from something besides producing more electricity from the cheapest (and often dirtiest) power source.  And it's definitely up to all of us, but we all operate in a context, and right now that context needs to change big time.

digital energy management best facilitates savings EEC thru price signals, aka real-time pricing.  This allow the current method of profit-making to stand, and also does not deter efficient long-term planning as decoupling revenues from sales may.  

"EEC are actions taken by utility customers and not the utility."

New light bulbs and more installation is for residential customers, but when you talk about utility EEC, its huge.  And even beyond residential, commercial, non-residential, and large-residential customer EEC will be very significant.

Check out this link and watch Xcel's video at the lower half of the page.  There's more but this video gives a good picture of what the smart grid will do.  

ALso check out this ad from the Galvin Electric Initiate site.  Galvin has been a leading consultant in shape policy towards the more intelligent grid.  

will be facilitated by none other the utility.  The utility grid is very inefficient by itself.  Its a 1950's technology.  For every $1 of electricity, it costs b/n $4 to 5$ to generate and deliver it.  Read that DVP release.  It spells out what the smart grid will entail.  Only after the utilities implement its infrastructure with a more intelligent grid, will we then start to see greater EEC by customers (and a greater utilization of intermittent renewables.)  We are certainly at the early stage, but its beginning to take shape.  

And, Lowell, we already knew of this summer's rate hike.  The Wise plant is expensive because of technology.  It is the best money can buy at the moment, or afford or what the SCC is willing to allow DVP charge its customers for, as far as the cleanest dirty coal go.  

The power station includes a ~80MW biomass generator so we should not assume 100% of the project cost is for coal generation.  Also since the ruling is mandating further modifications for increasing cleaner air from the plant, we can expect the Wise plant to cost consumers even more than the $1.8b.  

Later this year or early next, when price caps are removed, we'll can expect another rate increase.  

Lastly, despite our distaste for DVP, not only are our rates among the cheapest in the nation, the increase is well within or below other rate increases in the mid-Atlantic.

Allegheny Power's residential customers will see their annual bills increase an average of 15.7% over the annual bills last year as a result of the June 9 solicitation.

Beginning September 1, Baltimore Gas and Electric Type II energy bills will increase by between 26% and 37% compared with the same period in 2007.

Delmarva Power and Light's Type II customers will see an increase in their energy bills on September 1 ranging between 23% and 26% compared with the year before.

Potomac Electric's Type II customers will see an increase in their bills on September 1 between 23% and 24% compared with last year.

According to Albo (note that he puts "environmentalists" in quotation marks when referencing the Dominion coal plant battles....)

Albo:Saves Us From the Commies

As someone who lost another three hours to Dominion's crappy infrastructure today (we had a massive FIVE MINUTE windstorm -- the transformer down the street popped yet again), all I can say is that Dominion suckssuckssucks. I've lived in 13 states, and I've never experienced interruptions in service like this before. Baghdad has more reliable power than this place.

"Baghdad has more reliable power than this place."

Maybe Eric should make a graphic of that one! :)

When Dominion says that they're committed to getting their customers to conserve power, they're lying. You wouldn't expect your dealer to persuade you to cut back on your heroin consumption. Don't expect Dominion to help you buy less power.

See here for more about why "Dominion won't help you kick the habit" - certainly true as long as their profits are DIRECTLY TIED to selling MORE POWER.  Can we say "electric rate decoupling?!?"

according to the Washington Post:

"Next year, Dominion can seek an increase in its base rate, which funds delivery, power lines, plants and company profit and makes up the remaining 75 percent of a customer's bill."

But never fear, "The company will provide $5 million in emergency grants and allow more customers to take part in a program that allows bills to be paid in 12 nearly equal monthly installments."  

Woo-hoo, we get to pay in 12 nearly equal monthly installments.  Well, all our problems are solved now!!! ;)