California Looks To “Necessarily” Skyrocket Electricity Rates, ‘Cause Climate Change

21 May, 2015 by William Teach

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Can you guess who will be hurt by this idea, as being pushed mostly by White Liberals?

(USA Today) How much Californians pay for electricity could soon depend on when they use it — and some could see their summer bills go up substantially.

The California Public Utilities Commission could soon ask Southern California Edison and other utility companies to start designing “time-of-use” residential electricity rates, to take effect in 2019. The rates would make electricity more expensive when demand is high, and less expensive when demand is low.

Some ratepayer advocates and environmental groups support time-varying rates, which they say would help reduce dependence on climate-altering fossil fuels. But at least one consumer watchdog group is worried the rates would have unintended consequences. For instance, the new rates could make electricity much more expensive during the summer, hitting desert residents hard during the many months of air conditioning season.

It will also hit lower and middle class income folks much harder than all the Rich White Liberals in California. Let’s not forget, those who are involved with environmentalism/climate change, particularly the leaders, tend to be rich and white. Funny thing is, the very people who will be hurt the most, poorer minorities, are the ones calling the most for Government to Do Something, to make it a top priority. The RWLs have convinced poor minorities that raising the cost of living is necessary.

As for “unintended consequences”, increasing the cost of energy, which will increase the cost of living, is anything by “unintended”. It should be pointed out that peak demand cost is nothing new; quite a few power companies practice it. What is different here the rate demands, and the why

Many environmental groups see time-varying rates as a smart way to limit fossil fuel-driven climate change.

While the rates wouldn’t be designed to reduce overall energy consumption, they would ideally limit the need for expensive, gas-fired “peaker” plants. Those plants are generally inefficient, spewing more air pollutants and planet-warming greenhouse gases than most energy sources.

They want to use the force of Government to change people’s behavior. Meanwhile, these same Cult Of Climastrology members refuse to give up their own fossil fuels usage. Weird, right?

Here’s the “typical demand profile of an individual household monitored every two 2 minutes” (from here)

And “total California load profile for a hot day in 1999”

Hooray, everyone can do their laundry in the middle of the night! Of course, let’s consider that so many uber-Democrat voters in California are CoC members, and have been calling for all sorts of “climate change” rules, regulations, laws, and initiatives. Well, here they go. They’re getting their wish. It will be amusing when they complain about their cost of living escalating precipitously. Because what they really want is all the penalties and cost increases and bad stuff to be forced on Other People. Now they’ll have the opportunity to be forced to practice what they preach.

It might help if California would actually build new power plants. A few nuclear plants would do wonders. Heck, if the enviroweenies would stop blocking solar farms, even solar could help during peak time.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.