My Trial of Pacific Power Blue Sky Renewable Energy

In October, 2018, I signed up with a solicitor at my door, for Blue Sky Usage , to: 
Support 100% Pacific Northwest renewable resources from Oregon, Washington and Idaho. The resource mix is likely to include wind (87%), biomass (2%), solar (10%) and geothermal (1%).

The cost is about $8 more per month, (for typical customer),   $0.0105 per kWh.

Blue Sky is a program of PacifiCorp., Pacific Power, of Portland, Oregon 

It was a very questionable thing to do, where I was within weeks of turning over the house to renters.

Over a 14 month period then, my renters reimbursed to me, these added costs paid:

At 3/26/2020, I reverse the cost to my renters, deducting from my record  of the landlord-paid Utiliies, the amount $65.59. Annually there is a settlement vs. estimated $200 per month added to the rent payment. My Blue Sky experiment never really touched the renters. I do advise my renters of this explanatory post. I don't trouble them to weigh in on virtue of the experiment. 

Where in this review I also summarize household contribution to Oregon's Public Purpose Fund , I treat both as involuntary carbon taxes . Please be patient here with the hyperlinks, and go there to my deeper writing on subjects if you can. I believe in carbon taxes broadly-defined, that energize public banking and that fund all infrastructure development including durable, most-efficient housing-as-a human-right. We must stop believing lies of the greedy most-affluent, that we are better off when self-interested-at-the-top investors are the printers of money, and design projects for their short-term gain. Those of us with assets on Wall Street, and I am not one of them, will see how their ride from the coat tails of the evil Ponzi schemers of an insane market, ends up.

Lumping the two carbon taxes and knowing that the Public Purpose Charge, PPC, is 3% added to a bill, the Blue Sky Charge would similarly be computed as 8.2% of bill. An electricity carbon tax of more than 11% is quite large and yet is acceptable to more than 125,000 participants. I wonder why any of this should be acceptable to renters, where there is no scheme to produce personal benefits for them. If charges are stinky to renters-unaware, they must be stinky for anyone. Yes, the PPC is stinky too. Program managers and Oregon political leaders must know that PPC collections with no possible return to renters and unaware, is theft.

Electricity Energy Conservation Improvements Charted for 22 Years  
(Including 14 months with Blue Sky):  

I have done very much to make my home-now-rental, energy-efficient, Electricity usage with a single occupant was reduced by half circa 2011, in replacing an electric clothes dryer with natural gas, getting rid of CRT displays, and full conversion to most-efficient LED downlights. Electricity usage is proportional to the number of adult occupants. Rising electricity billing rates act counter to the energy conservation. See that in the current winter, my renters used less electricity than the year before, yet bills went up. That change, not warned and not accepted, troubles me very much.

At May 17, 2020, apologize this so far is not instructive to my rental-home electric power utility, Pacific Power. I am bitter in knowing that a phone responder taking my Blue Sky cancellation admitted without apology, that Pacific Power finds added solar capacity is uneconomic. My cancellation then is with a vengeance. What is the good in investor profit from investment in some Montana wind turbine? I wasn't doing any good in promotion of solar capacity for my community, with lowered rates that might justify my renters making the Blue Sky contribution.

I recently was hit-upon in email by Pacific Power to make charitable contributions, perhaps a parallel of the Blue Sky deal. I replied with link to this post, unhappy. I said that charity is limited and must be done smartly. (This doesn't measure up.)

LENDING A HAND

To help struggling families and seniors, we will contribute $2 for every $1 donated by our customers to Oregon Energy Fund, making your donation go even further. We’ve already contributed to Oregon Energy Fund and together we can do more.

If you are able, please consider helping those in need of energy assistance by donating.

Today I find on-topic, this current post at RMI Blog:

Lowering Costs and Carbon for Minnesota Co-ops 

Says the concluding paragraph of the report of closing a coal power plant in North Dakota:

Cooperatively owned coal across the region, and the country, will continue to come up against the same economic shortfalls experienced by GRE, yet the member-centric, independent co-op business model remains uniquely positioned to lead rural communities through the transition. GRE has set the stage and shown that even in the midst of economic crisis, co-ops can take decisive action on behalf of their members and can lead the way toward a lower-cost, clean energy future.

Try to find out how this might work for investments by caring individuals. Google this statement: Minnesota: invest in cooperative power companies solar capacity 

From this, and many other resources, Pacific Power might find an honest way to let its customers invest with them in the common good of the imperative clean energy future.

Please consider here, this writing by Sightline Institute:

How Utilities Make Monopoly Money

https://www.sightline.org/2020/05/18/playing-monopoly-or-how-utilities-make-money/?utm_source=Sightline%

20Institute&utm_medium=web-email&utm_campaign=Sightline%20News%20Selections

See that Articles of Sightline Institute are now linked among Web Referrals of this blog.

At 5/14/2021, add new Label Carbon Taxes to this post upon finding a similar, larger ask of my natural gas utility, Northwest Natural Smart Energy. Whereas Pacific Power wants added revenue beneficial to its marketing that is 8.2% of a billing amount, Northwest Natural wants 10.486%. Both of these takes volunteered by pollution-conscious customers are something of a voluntary carbon tax in Oregon on top of our involuntary 3% Public Purpose Fund energy-consumption tax. The appeal to me arrived in a letter yesterday, and if accepted would be paid by the renters of my home. Where my renters would have no benefit, I think this fails a smell test. I would not ask for their generosity and could not impose a decision upon them.

I call these voluntary consumption taxes  something of a voluntary carbon tax  because the revenue is collected 100% by the generators of CO2, and not by an unselfish government entity. I won't see the take by utilities as unselfish. For anyone, for all of us, reduced energy consumption is profitable. A utility does not need to take money from me, or my renters, to enable investment in less-costly energy extraction or power production. If methane from waste costs more to a utility than fracked gas, the difference should be offset by a utility-paid carbon tax.