I was poking around and found this older story
http://online.wsj.com/...
As utilities across the U.S. grapple with stagnant electricity sales, many see opportunity in the fledgling need for electric-car charging stations. But some companies' tactics are spurring complaints from consumer advocates.
THis is a chance for Progressive activists to move the needle, if you care.....
Electricity sales are stagnant...
Electric cars are growing...
Let's ally with our giant utilities to drive a clean tech future...
More after the orange sign of the future.
http://instituteforenergyresearch.org/...
Since 2007, U.S. electricity sales have declined. With 10 months of data available for 2013, that declining trend is expected to continue. Between 2010 and 2012, total electricity sales declined by 1.6 percent. During that time period, residential electricity sales declined by 4.9 percent despite a growth in households, and commercial electricity sales declined by 0.2 percent despite growth in commercial building space. Industrial electricity sales took the hardest hit, declining by 9.1 percent between 2008 and 2009, and then slowing increasing, but without regaining their 2008 level. This stagnation in electricity markets is surprising given that the growth in electricity demand had tracked the growth in the GDP historically.
Okay Folks this is a big deal...
Electricity used to be the nice indicator for the economy.
http://notrickszone.com/...
http://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/...
http://ourfiniteworld.com/...
http://blogs.edf.org/...
Now look what's happening... Efficiency and new technology and Small PV are slashing the consumption of electricity.
Utilities had 25 and 100 year plans. You don't build a nuke plant or a dam assuming 2 year data.
So with 5 years of data, the Planners and managers are freaking out... They are starting to scale this data out some 25 years and seeing huge down trends.
With cheap LED Lights.
http://cleantechnica.com/...
The magical $10 price barrier for LED light bulbs was crashed last year and today one of the main crashers has just come out with a brand new edition that pushes their initial price down even lower. That would be North Carolina’s Cree, which has just informed us by email that the going rate for its standard 60-watt equivalent will be $7.97, not counting in-store discounts or promotions. Cree also shipped us a sample to try out and it arrived just in time for this review, so we gave it the acid test: our favorite reading lamp.
,,,,,
At 82 percent less energy consumption than conventional light bulbs, The 60W Cree that we tested will save an average of $1.32 yearly when used for just three hours daily. All else being equal, your payback period would span just a few years, and for your $7.97 investment you get a lifetime savings of about $135.
Since the lifespan of the Cree bulb is estimated at almost 23 years (at three hours daily), you’re also going to save additional money on the replacement cost for conventional bulbs, which have a much shorter life.
do the math, multiply by 10 bulbs a house and all your customers, it's suddenly
one months electric bill going away. In things like a mall or a office building it's much bigger.
People aren't going to dump their LED lights, so, what is the source of new demand?
Electric cars.
In San Diego, Sempra Energy's SRE +0.56% power utility wants to install 5,500 electric-car chargers at hundreds of office parks, apartment buildings and condominium complexes at a cost of $100 million. The company says convenient, easy-to-use charging stations will encourage more Californians to adopt electric cars, improving air quality for everyone. The utility wants to add a surcharge to all San Diego customers' bills.
The Utility Reform Network,(TURN) a nongovernmental organization that fights rate increases, has asked state regulators to reject the new fee, about 40 cents a month for an average customer.
Now if this gets Rate-Based. we can move the needle.
Turn appears to be a real organization
http://www.dailykos.com/...
but I think they are misguided.
If we swap to clean EVs, the air gets better, the economy gets better,
the demand for fossil fuels drops...
http://www.forbes.com/...
The Edison Electric Institute (EEI) just came out with a report extolling the virtues of electric vehicles (EVs), and arguing for their rapid adoption in order to maintain sales volumes and restore health to a threatened industry. EEI states that “electrification is our biggest opportunity.” The Institute comments in the report that 93% of energy in the transportation industry today comes from petroleum, and that electrification of the transportation fleet could benefit the economy and the environment, while offering utilities new opportunities to engage their customers.
Against the backdrop of slowing growth in the electric power industry, bringing electricity to the transportation sector is a huge, albeit long-term opportunity for load growth.”
In one sense, you would think that this is obvious, but you would not know it yet by the actions of the utilities themselves: to date only 1.7% of the vehicles purchased for the utility fleets in the past five years have been electric. So much for eating one’s own dog food.
As advocates we can have the utilties serve as our allies in making electric cars a big deal and in adding to the network.
We need a network effect
https://en.wikipedia.org/...
In economics and business, a network effect (also called network externality or demand-side economies of scale) is the effect that one user of a good or service has on the value of that product to other people. When a network effect is present, the value of a product or service is dependent on the number of others using it.[1]
The classic example is the telephone. The more people who own telephones, the more valuable the telephone is to each owner. This creates a positive externality because a user may purchase a telephone without intending to create value for other users, but does so in any case. Online social networks work in the same way, with sites like Twitter and Facebook becoming more attractive as more users join.
If we as activists get the utilities to switch to 100% EV Fleets, so they eat their
own dog food, and if the utilities work with us on Charging infrastructure,
we will drive change.
If you care about Climate Change, this is a big deal.
http://www.energyvanguard.com/...
this is an old Sankey diagram but Transportation and Electricity are the big producers of Carbon Dioxide. We can change them both at the same time.
but Progressives must help make this change not fight this change