Bear with me a moment, this is more a work in progress than a complete diary.
I stepped into a conversation the other day on a fish forum that has gotten me trying to track down some information. It all started with people trying to figure out how much money we were wasting on electricity to keep pretty fish in our houses. As you can guess, people with a thousand watts of lights running twelve hours a day didn't really want to look to closely to avoid the sticker shock. Besides, we casually spend WAY too much on fish and corals to worry about the cost of a few watts of power.
Amongst the replies though was someone from Pennsylvania paying 10.2 cents a kilowatt hour. That caught me off guard since my rate down here in Florida is only 5.2 cents per kilowatt hour. I expected some differences due to different markets, but a doubling of price?!?!
So I pulled out the Google to take a look around. And pretty quickly I came across the Energy Information Administration and this handy little page: Electricity US Data
That along with this map. Explained the large price difference in locations. Pennsylvania has been going through structural changes and an opening of the market. The same thing that brought us the rolling black outs in California.
So problem solved, right? Almost...
The charts explained the higher prices in the North East, but they failed to explain my low price, or my friends in nearby towns, or the company where I work.
According to the EIA, the average for my state is 10.45 cents kW/h. Yet my rate, and everyones rate that I could find out, is half of that. I have this very odd suspicion that I'm going to find the same thing for anyone living to the south of Tennessee.
What got me wondering about this is knowing that the power companies are the largest admitted monopoly in the country. And knowing the common tactics of monopolies or Oligopolies. The object of the game is creating a high bar to entry into the market. Try starting a phone service, a car company or a solar power company and you'll quickly run into regulations, taxes, fees and other barriers to the market that are the signature of an Oligopoly. Given the propensity for corruption in industries like these (Enron), it's looking to me like there are some fudged numbers on these reports.
Take a look at the map on this page: Electricity US Data
And see if your rate matches if you're in Tennessee or north, or your rate is lower in Tennessee and south of there. Then also realize that from Tennessee south is where you would want to build a solar power plant. While obviously the western deserts are the prime solar collection areas, transmission and other cost factors mean any populated area with enough sunlight becomes lucrative, depending on the prevailing market.
What happens when a small start up expects an average price per kilowatt that's twice what they'll actually get? How many investors will risk repeating that mistake?
Yeah, I fully admit I'm off in tin foil territory. However I do think if we're going to be working towards energy independence and an informed energy policy, we have to make sure our information is as accurate as possible. And who is really working for the country instead of the corporations.