Yesterday I received a solicitation phone call that took a somewhat different tack: the phone solicitor offered to connect me to my state representative’s office to voice my support for a new, refurbished power grid in Illinois. I suspect this is what it was all about:
ComEd has been lobbying hard for SB 1652, commonly referred to as the ComEd bill, which would launch a sophisticated smart-grid program that would give consumers a chance to cut their electric costs over the long haul but require them to open their wallets now to pay for the power company’s upgrade.
The measure could mean significant changes for folks who have come to expect their daily interaction with the power company to involve little more than flipping a light switch. Mostly gone would be meter readers, eventually replaced by electronic devices that upload information directly to ComEd and let customers see how much power they’re using.
ComEd says a customer who’s now paying $82 a month for electricity would have to cough up $3 per month more for 10 years to pay for the smart-grid conversion. But the technology — when it’s up and running in a few years — in theory could save customers $3 a month by helping them control their energy consumption and making ComEd more efficient, said Anne Pramaggiore, the utility’s chief operating officer and president.
As I read it ComEd is asking for more money and laxer oversight to do what they should be doing anyway using the same inducements they’ve been using for a half century. For fifty years Commonwealth Edison and now ComEd have been promising Chicago consumers lower utility rates and somehow the lower rates never materialize.
As readers of this blog should recall I’m entirely in favor of an improved power grid that provides greater efficiency, resiliency, and adaptivization. And I’ve complained enough here about power outages. However, I’m also disinclined to take the word of a company that’s been baiting and switching its customers for decades. I also wonder what restrictions there are on the company in raising capital through private means. People keep telling me how low interest rates are. Wouldn’t this be a good time for ComEd to issue bonds for the upgrade?
