I received my electric bill today. Enclosed with the bill is the utility’s request for a Rate hike. According to EPE, the increase is required to recover costs for EPE’s $408.44 million investment since its 2020 rate case, including invesrments in distribution, transmission, nuclear production, local generating plants and general plant. EPE is also proposing to include in base rates its Commission approved advanced metering system, and the annual capacity costs associated with Commission approved agreements for three battery energy storage facilities.
No mention of the impact of the new data center under construction in the county.
It would be 2 increases. Part 1 on January 1, 2027. And Part 2 on October1, 2027.
customer charge current:$7.00, Part 1 $14.36, Part 2 $18.89
first 600 KWH-Summer current $.07035, Part 1 $09649, Part 2 $.13045
above 600 KWH-Summer current $.10876, Part 1 $.14469, Part 2 $.18118
Non-Summer current $.05816, Part 1 $.07273, Part 2 $.09793
I pulled the May 2003 bill. $6 customer charge 151 KWH used. Total bill $21.00
Today’s May bill. Customer charge 94KWH used. Total bill $18.64.If I had used 151 KWH this month the bill would be $25.89. Approx 23% increase. over 23 years. Not bad at all.
It has been 6 years since the last rate increase. To me the current request appears egregious and rapacious. Does anyone know how often utility boards cut rate increases?
The public hearing will be live streamed September 21 to October 1. Written or oral comment by the public can be made.
I wonder how many other board members might be receiving large utility increase requests.
A roughly 30% increase last year, combined with the still-available federal subsidies at the time, is what made putting solar panels on my roof financially feasible. This year’s rate hike is closer to 9%, which just makes the panels’ payoff date sooner and ROI more attractive.
The panels are sized to cover the home’s electrical usage plus local driving for two plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. Including both the effects of continuously rising electric rates and the recent spike in gas prices, the panels are quickly turning from “a reasonable alternative to extending my bond ladder” to “oh my, these panels are really, really helpful.”
Kudos Chuck for your long range planning.
I’m 75 years old. I am not sure my lifespan is long enough to benefit from the expense of installing solar panels.
So my current plan is to see how this rate hike resolves. If it is approved, will check into how much a contractor will charge to install a system. And I will research how difficult it is to install a system myself. I do own an acre of land so the panels would not have to be installed on the roof of my house.
I checked out the prices for the parts the contractor was using on my installation. The contractor also had job postings for installers and electricians as well, so I had a pretty decent handle on the labor costs as well. They made a decent profit on the installation, even at retail prices for parts.
That said, the back-and-forth with the county and the utility over the plans and permits was a substantial pain. In addition, the utility had a licensing requirement to grid-tie the system and assure that the cutoff was installed and tested properly. Plus, I’ve already had a panel & microinverter replaced for free to me under warranty…
So net — yeah, I’m sure you can save money by doing most of it yourself. Just know that even in a largely DIY framework, you’ll likely still need some professional help for parts of it.
I guess no impact on rates . Though locating a data center in a desert area with limited water and going through a drought seems similar to instituting a war in Iran. Idiotic.
And the fuel cells doesn’t solve the pollution problem. Just mitigates it.
The corporate entity responsible for the data center is located in Austin Texas. Austin has many surrounding lakes & 35 inches of annual rainfall. Seems ideal for a data center.
Last fall, construction began on the Project Jupiter data center in Santa Teresa. Developed by BorderPlex Digital Assets, the complex will be powered by a self-contained power system that is separate from the grid that supplies electricity to the public. It is being built for Oracle, which will use it to host artificial intelligence infrastructure for OpenAI.
According to Oil & Gas Watch, Project Jupiter is getting lots of blowback from the local community because of its large carbon footprint and its demand for water in an area that already suffers from scarce water resources. In response, the developer and Oracle announced in April that Project Jupiter will utilize fuel cells to make the electricity needed to power the data center instead of gas turbines and diesel generators.
Apparently the locals were supposed to bow down and thank the owners of the project for sparing them all the pollution those generators would have caused, but the people of Santa Teresa are not that easily fooled. Fuel cells convert methane into electricity through a chemical reaction with oxygen.
Colin Cox, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, told Oil & Gas Watch that while the fuel cell proposal is an improvement, it is still a climate disaster. “Ten million tons per year is more than the greenhouse gas emissions from Albuquerque, Las Cruces, and Santa Fe — New Mexico’s three biggest cities — combined. That absolutely trashes our state’s climate progress and makes a joke out of climate goals,” he said.
Cox criticized Project Jupiter for its failure to communicate with the local population in a transparent manner. “We get little bits of information here and there from various public filings,” he said. “When we finally found out how much of our water the first power plant was going to use, people were rightly outraged. Now they say this power plant will use less. What does that mean, and why aren’t they sharing that information?”
As @eldemonio mentioned in another topic, energy source can impact overall pollution.
Ie hydrogen vs biogas vs fossil fuel… Vs fugitive methane emissions.
A few years ago, New Mexico n TX Permian basin was id’d as a major source of “fugitive, vented, escaped” methane emissions leading to global warming.
Perhaps the Data Centers fuel cell operators might be influenced to tap into these “fugitive” gases?
