Doug hung this year's Boalsburg People's Art Fest purchase for me. It's to display some of the wooden bowls.
Read more: http://www.centredaily.com/2010/07/12/2087643/increase-may-not-be-severe.html#ixzz0u5c0HTOo
POWER PLAY: PART TWO
Electricity rate increase may not be severe
Nick Malawskey
- nmalawsk@centredaily.comJuly 13, 2010 7:59am EDT
STATE COLLEGE — There are days, said Akhlesh Lakhtakia, when he and his wife can stand outside their State College home and watch their electric meter run backward.
CDT photos/Christopher Weddle
Envinity Inc. installers Marcus Cullen, front, and Asa Myers place a solar module on a home in Potter Township. As the expiration date for caps on electricity nears, many homeowners are investing in other forms of electricity.
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By harnessing the power of the sun, the Penn State professor has, during the past 10 months, watched his home energy bills plummet.
Last year the Lakhtakias took advantage of a state and federal program that helped pay the costs of home solar projects. They installed a solar array on their roof, one of the first in the area, and have reaped the benefits since.
“We are extremely happy,” he said, adding that he expects the project to pay for itself in five to seven years.
He recently had a monitoring system installed that allows him to review his power generation daily. He won’t be able to perform a year’s analysis for a few more months, but in general, he figures the solar array has reduced the amount of power the family has to purchase by 80 percent.
“And frequently, we generate more power than we need,” he said.
Shaun Pardi is president of State College-based Envinity, an energy company that works in a variety of fields, including solar. This year, he has two crews working on solar projects, and they’re booked through the summer with residential projects, he said. He’s thinking of adding a third installation crew to keep up with the demand.
But for most homeowners, a $30,000-plus solar array is probably not feasible, especially since Pennsylvania eliminated its solar rebate program.
There is some good news from Allegheny Power regarding the future of energy prices, which will fluctuate based on market rates when rate caps, in place since 1997, expire on Dec. 31.
“We’re not seeing that big rate increase that was being speculated,” said Allegheny spokesman Doug Colafella. “All those big figures that were bandied about ... 30 percent, 60 percent ... we’re looking at a single-digit rate increase.”
On the auction block
In one of the first areas where rate caps were removed, Pike County, residents were slammed in 2005 when, as a result of a single energy purchase by the utility in the post- Katrina open market, electricity bills jumped an average of 73 percent.
PPL customers in southeastern Pennsylvania were a little bit luckier when its caps expired in 2009. When the company purchased electricity, its customers saw a roughly 30 percent increase in prices. That led to a massive amount of shopping around by consumers, with roughly 30 percent choosing a different supplier.
A similar situation worked itself out in Duquesne Light’s territory in western Pennsylvania, where about 20 percent of the company’s customers chose to go with a different energy generator after caps were removed in 2005.
Each time the changes were driven by substantial increases in prices after rate cap removal.
The difference between those cap removals and what is likely to happen with Allegheny is experience, said Public Utility Commission spokeswoman Jennifer Kocher. She said both the utilities and the commission learned from the past and changed the way the utilities purchase power.
Allegheny and Penelec, which operates in northwestern Centre County, are buying their energy at a number of “auctions.”
In each auction the companies put out requests for power, telling suppliers how much they wish to purchase, and the electricity suppliers then bid on the contracts.
Allegheny was also allowed to move its auction dates around to take advantage of changes in market prices.
“With the struggling economy, the energy prices had dropped,” Kocher said. “So Allegheny petitioned to move its auction dates to take advantage of the favorable market prices.”
Because of the maneuvering, customers in the Allegheny Power territory who choose not to shop around will likely get a pretty good deal — a typical residential customer’s bill will likely increase $3.72 per month, or only 4 percent over this year’s level.
Nick Malawskey can be reached at 235-3928.
