Political energy must ‘green’ up: Decouple sales and profits

From an editorial in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

. . . between 1984 and 2004, when Georgia’s population grew by 51 percent, its energy usage rose 76 percent and its gasoline consumption jumped 67 percent. Today, Georgia’s households use about 25 percent more electricity than the national average, and pay monthly electric bills that are nearly 10 percent higher.

A large part of the problem is that utilities such as Georgia Power make money by selling as much electricity as possible to consumers, not less. To curtail energy consumption, states such as California, Idaho, New York and Wisconsin are experimenting with a novel concept known as “decoupling,” which aims to make conservation and efficiency more attractive for utilities and their customers.

In places where decoupling is in effect, state regulators reward electric utilities that lower demand with higher rates and punish those that don’t with lower rates.

Although customers’ rates may increase as a result, their monthly energy bills will decrease because they aren’t using as much.