[Title changed by popular demand]
This is an attempt at a fair impartial examination of the Pennsylvania Electric Choice Program which invites grifters from across the nation to harass and extract money from Pennsylvania residential electric consumers.
Texas and Pennsylvania proudly proclaim themselves leaders in utility deregulation. Below is the relative Kilowatt hour rates for residential customers versus commercial customers for the states with the highest difference versus those with the lowest. Texas and Pennsylvania residential customers pay 40% more than commercial rates while the regulated rates for Louisiana and Tennessee are nearly the same for the two classes.
The rate data is from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
The effect of electric rate deregulation is a shifting of costs from commercial and industrial customers to residential customers. This is advertised as consumer choice, but for residential users it is really allowing companies to choose their customers. This allows the customers to be sliced and diced to more efficiently raise the rates on those without the resources or ability to defend themselves from the "Smartest people in the room".
More below.
Electricity is a natural monopoly. There are high entry costs and it doesn't make economic sense to duplicate transmission systems. There is no natural competition possible between suppliers.
What electric choice has allowed is for the energy industry to pick and choose customers. Where once there was a transparent rational system where Public Utility Commissions competed on a equal footing with utility companies to protect the interests of the consumer and the suppliers, now the Public Utility commissions team up with industry to maximize revenue from the most vulnerable.
Tennessee is an anachronism. The Nashville Electric Service states :
NES energy rates are set and regulated by the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). All residential customers in the NES service area pay the same electric rate regardless of social status, income, or place of residence.
This does not fit the current the goal of maximizing stripping the masses of resources to benefit the elite. Instead of providing universal electric service at fair rates, electric service is another battlefield on the war on the poor.
In spite of a public relations campaign which produces glowing statements like this published a month after Pennsylvania implemented the program, Pennsylvanians have roundly rejected the despised program.
Deregulation of conventional energy supplies has been a huge success for consumers. Now, with that positive experience, the state’s Republican leadership has ample evidence to support reversing the subsidization of alternative energy.
The majority of consumers refuse to participate. Frustrated by the failure of their program Republic legislature have proposed a
program to force an unwilling populace to participate and while taking from them $300 million in a one time artificial enrichment of Governor Corbett's budget.
Suspended on this chart is a term used by Electric Choice proponents where the program has been tried and rejected by the state. These are the four largest and four smallest differences in state rates for commercial and residential rates.