PeoriaStory

Thinking of opting out? Read this first.

PEORIA -- Perplexed over whether to opt out from the new municipal electricity supply plan? Here's how to find out whether it will save you money.The opt-out deadline is June 1.  If you're eligible for the plan you should have received an opt-out letter by now.

Chris Setti, Peoria's Special Projects Manager said in a email that "the negotiated price is $0.0408/kWh, well below the standard rate."  That's 4 cents plus, per kilowatt hour.

If you want the hassle of checking on the web, here's how, But stay tuned, as there's a faster way I discovered, below.

Setti wrote:  "Ameren has a nifty "price-to-compare" function that shows you the average price per kWh you are likely to pay on the standard rate (this is a blended average of your summer, non-summer and excessive use rates over a 12 month period).  The process to find it is pretty convoluted, but here is how to do it:

1. Go to www.ameren.com
2. On the left side, login to your account (if you don't have an online account, you can register for one pretty easily).
3. On the left side of the next screen, under "Customer Service Center" you will see and option (under "My Bills and Payments") called "My Account Details."  Click this.
4. A new window will pop up.  In the top right corner of this window, click on "Usage History."
5. Specific information about your account will now be visible.  Near the middle of the window, you will see a link that says "Show More Detail." Click this.
6. The window changes to show some expanded information.  One of the items now visible is the "Comparison Price."  If that number is greater than $0.0408/kWh, you are better off sticking with the program.  If, for some reason, your number is lower than $0.0408, then you should opt-out.  My number was $0.056439/kWh, so I'm going to join the program (by doing nothing)."

However:  if this is too much hassle, just call the Ameren 800 number: 1-800-755-5000.  Hit 'operator' then ask for the 'Comparison Price.'  You'll get it in seconds. 

I did it, and found my Peoria rate to be more than 5 cents per KWH -- so I'm happy to save money by staying in the new plan.

 -- Elaine Hopkins

Electric aggregation coming, and...

PEORIA -- With recent voter approval of the electric aggregation referendums in the city of Peoria, Peoria County and other municipalities in the region, the area is poised to make the largest green energy purchase in the US history.

That's from Chris Setti, special projects manager for the city of Peoria, who spoke on April 7 to the Peoria County Democratic Women's meeting.

There will be around 215,000 households in the group buying 100 percent green energy, he said.

The city of Peoria has scheduled public hearings on Tuesday, April 10 and Tuesday, April 17, both before the regular meeting of the City Council. Then the bids will  immediately go out for a supplier.

Peoria and the others are part of a larger group of municipalities in downstate Illinois bidding together.  They will be buying renewable energy credits, which will put money into green energy production in the US.

He expects the typical household to save $150 or $200 a year on electricity bills.

Any household will be able to opt out without charge for a while, then the opt out cost will be less than $25, he said. It's free for people who move. 

People left out also will be able to opt in, which includes those who move into the city and become ratepayers.

Some details remain to be worked out, including whether households which get discounts from higher than usual power use will save money, he said.  The city expects to put a calculator on its website so people can determine whether they will save money based on the rates they are paying Ameren/Cilco or other suppliers.

The issue of other suppliers was raised, with some saying there are high opt out charges for them.  They should contact the Citizens Utility Board or the Illinois Commerce Commission for help.

All qualifying households without special circumstances or other suppliers will be switched over sometime during the summer, he said. But they will be notified by the city that they can opt out free if not satisfied.

 -- Elaine Hopkins

 

CUB to Ameren: No!

PEORIA -- The Citizens Utility Board says that Ameren doesn't need the $90 million rate hike it's now seeking from the Illinois Commerce Commission.

CUB's communication director Patrick Deignan, and CUB board member from the 18th Congressional District Randy Fritz spoke at an Aug. 25 news conference at Friendship House about the proposed rate increase.

They were joined by Mary Patton, a volunteer for the AARP, who said the elderly in Illinois are already paying 14 percent of their household income for utilities, and cannot afford to pay more.

CUB received a $41 million increase last year, and tried to get automatic rate increases turned into law by the Illinois General Assembly, she said, adding Gov. Pat Quinn has promised to veto the bill, so Ameren is seeking the rate increase instead.

Deignan urged citizens to contact the ICC to comment on the rate proposal and sign a petition against it. The website StopAmeren.com  will direct people on ways to do this.

Deignan said the rate increase proposal is based on inflated costs and an investor return of 11 percent, excessive in today's low yields. "The company is healthy. It doesn't deserve more."

Fritz said the company should be returning $2 million to its customers. "If you're going to speak up, speak up now," he said. 

A public hearing is scheduled next week in Springfield, and the ICC is expected to reach a decision in January.

 -- Elaine Hopkins

Cut your phone bills!

PEORIA -- Land line phone customers in Peoria and other Illinois cities can save an average of $194 yearly by switching to one of three Consumer Choice AT&T plans that are now available, Citizens Utility Board representatives said at a July 7 news conference.

We've seen "bloated phone packages" providing services that customers do not use, said CUB staffer Patrick Deignan.  Instead they can switch to one of three plans CUB help negotiate into law. Gov. Pat Quinn recently signed the law.  They are: 

• The basic plan at $9.50 monthly, will allows 30 local calls monthly.
• The extra plan at $15 monthly, with unlimited local calls.
• The plus plan at $19.70 monthly which includes unlimited local calls plus two extra features such as Caller ID and voice mail. 

The plans will be in effect at least until 2013, Deignan said. 

A 2009 CUB study estimated that Illinois consumers could be overspending on phone charges by more than $1 billion a year.

 Consumers also can sign up for a low cost long distance plan with Pioneer Telephone.These low cost services can help people keep their land lines, which provide enhanced 911 emergency services, so police, fire and ambulance services can find a residence quickly, and operate when a cell phone has run out of battery power, said Randy Fritz, 18th District representative to the CUB board. Land lines also work during power outages.

Details on these and other money saving plans, including ways to save money on cell phones, are available on the CUB website or by calling 1-800-669-5556. 

 -- Elaine Hopkins

AMEREN wants 10 percent profit

PEORIA – “CILCO is like a little boy in a candy store that you cannot control (his) greed. Act like the parent and pull him in,” a woman told representatives of the Illinois Commerce Commission on Feb. 19.

She was one of ten speakers at the fourth of several ICC hearings on Ameren’s requested rate increases of $247 million.

Many expressed a kind of free floating anger about the increases, as Ameren public relations officials tried to put a calm and reasonable face on their requests for more profits on the backs of the rate-paying public. “Our costs are up,” said one, Craig Nelson, an Ameren vice president for operations.

The Illinois chapter of the American Association of Retired Persons wasn’t buying it. Its spokeswoman at the hearing, Mary Patton, said Ameren’s plan to add “riders” or surcharges which the company could impose without ICC permission is especially outrageous and should not be permitted. “It’s wrong,” Patton said.

During a question and answer session following the formal hearing, Ameren officials admitted that the utilities buy one-third of their electric power from power plants Ameren also owns. Federal and state regulatory officials approved that arrangement, they said.

Asked what incentive Ameren has to control its costs, which are passed along to ratepayers, an official responded “it’s a never-ending process to keep our costs under control.”

The company wants to make a 10 percent return on its investment, one said, but now gets only 5 percent.

Asked about municipal power companies whose customers don’t face ever rising costs, and who even get rebates, someone in the audience volunteered that investors deserve a return. Ameren officials didn’t respond.

Randy Fritz, a board member and past president of the Citizens Utility Board furnished a copy of his comment to PeoriaStory. He stated:

It’s only been months since Ameren got its wrists slapped by the General Assembly and the Governor for an unfair power-pricing system that led to huge electric bills. And now the power company is reaching for our pocketbooks again.

Today we're here to tell Ameren: Not without a fight.

CUB is skeptical, as is anyone else who has studied the company’s track record. In the face of record profits and last year’s electric rate-hike rebellion, how can we NOT have doubts that this company has been doing all it could to make the wisest investments in its energy-delivery system.

Too often customers take a backseat to the bottom line—and what a healthy, record-breaking bottom line it’s been for Ameren. Back in 1999, the company listed profits of “only” $385 million. However, fattened by aggressive acquisitions—another sure sign of corporate health—and thoroughly enjoying the life of an Illinois electric monopoly, Ameren watched its profits grow to more than $600 million by 2005. This was all during an electric rate freeze.

More recently, Ameren’s profits shot up 15 percent in 2007, to $690 million. Of course, Ameren wants us to ignore its huge profits and argues that its utilities need the extra cash. But any dip in utility profits is the company’s own fault: It was forced by state officials to give out hundreds of millions of dollars in refunds as a result of last year’s electric battles in Springfield. That profit lost in refunds should never have been Ameren’s money in the first place.

Let’s not forget, it was just last year that Ameren’s inflated request for a $100 million electric-delivery rate hike—the same type of increase it’s pushing now—was cut in half by state regulators. Now the electric company’s back at the cookie jar, and the question for Ameren is: When is enough, enough?

CUB has seen no evidence that Ameren needs a big rate hike to provide safe, reliable service, adequate salaries for its employees, and a healthy return for investors. We’ll study every letter and every number of Ameren's $247 million rate-hike request and we will fight every penny that isn't justified.

The public can still comment on the rate increases, by calling 1-800-524-0795, or logging onto the ICC site, at www.icc.illinois.gov/docket/comment and using the following case numbers:

AmerenCILCO: electric 07-0585; natural gas 07-588.
AmerenCIPS: electric 07-0586; natural gas 07-0589.
AmerenIP: electric 07-0587; natural gas 07-0590.

-- Elaine Hopkins

Electric cooperatives?

PEORIA -- The Illinois General Assembly supposedly is working on ways to lower the sky high electric rates.

Meanwhile state Senator Dave Koehler, in a recent talk to Peoria Democrats, advanced an interesting proposal: cooperative purchases.

The city of Peoria and other entities can today form cooperatives to allow residents to buy electricity from a supplier other than Ameren/CILCO, presumably at rates lower than Ameren is charging. Or a discount deal could be made with Ameren.

Businesses are doing that now, but residential customers are not able to buy individually. A supplier would be enticed by a group sale, Koehler, a Peoria Democrat, said.

Peoria has explored setting up its own power plant on Darst Street, he said, a location near the Greater Peoria Sanitary District. That would be a coal gasification plant to produce electricity, he said.

If that happens, let’s hope strict environmental controls are in place to prohibit emissions.

Cooperatives likely would form only if the rate freeze doesn’t become law, Koehler said. “The freeze is not the solution,” he said.

Re-regulation also won't work, he said, because Ameren has sold off its generating plants to its subsidiaries. They would have to be repurchased at a tremendous cost to the ratepayers, and the regulated rates likely would be as high as the deregulated rates.

Cooperatives for residential users have not yet developed in Illinois because of uncertainty over the freeze and therefore the prices for electricity, he said.

But cooperatives carry extra benefits for their customers. Like rural electric cooperatives, they can be investor owned. They also could eventually produce their own power, he said, as some municipalities, such as Springfield, already do.

That would be a way to put electricity companies in the hands of the rate-paying public, he said.

Koehler also wants to see rate relief for all-electric houses. These houses were promised rate discounts years ago which were suddenly withdrawn.

He predicted that if the rate freeze eventually becomes law, it will generate an immediate federal lawsuit from Ameren, further delaying rate relief.

--Elaine Hopkins

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Electrifying mess

Forget the confusing news reports, editorials, pronouncements and screeds that proliferate concerning the drastic Ameren/CILCO/CIPS/IP electricity rate hikes.

Here's the real story.

On March 20, Citizens Utility Board president Randy Fritz of Williamsfield sent the following letter to area news media. Fritz is elected by the CUB board, members who in turn are elected by the membership in Illinois, which is open to anyone. He's one of the longest serving board members and knows a lot. A public school teacher, he has no hidden agenda.

So far the newspapers and other media have not bothered to run it, at least not yet. They appear to be relying on Ameren executives and politicans, all with their own agendas.

PeoriaStory will run what other media fear or disdain to run. Fritz's letter:

To the editor:

While it is promising that Ameren President Scott Cisel in his Sunday letter (in area newspapers) acknowledged that the “reverse-auction” system of pricing power needs to be scrapped, his proposal fails to even mention immediate and significant rate relief for his customers who are struggling to pay their ballooning electric bills.

That has to be the first step.

Mr. Cisel notes that Ameren Illinois is “just following the law” when it comes to the skyrocketing residential rates. He fails to mention that Ameren championed this “reverse auction” process as the only way in which electric rates could be set.

The Citizens Utility Board (CUB), for more than a year now, has argued that such an auction system is deeply flawed and would lead to unconscionably high rates for consumers who have no other choices in the electric market while giving Ameren windfall profits of up to $680 million.

Regardless of all this talk about the bond rating of AmerenCILCO, CIPS, and IP being downgraded, there is no practical difference between those utilities and their parent company, which made record profits under the rate freeze and would continue to be one of the most profitable power companies in the nation if the freeze were extended.

There is ONE Ameren stock price, and Mr. Cisel and other executives get financially rewarded if Ameren’s stock price does well. With the auction, Ameren simply transfers money from the left pocket to the right one.

That’s why CUB is pulling out all its stops to end Illinois’ energy crisis. Extending the rate freeze will allow Ameren to make healthy (not exorbitant!) profits, allow its customers to make ends meet, and buy Illinois more time to replace the obviously dysfunctional auction system.

Is Cisel’s proposal to re-regulate the right road? It’s too soon to say because, as always, the devil’s in the details.

What’s certain is that the astronomical rate hikes customers are now seeing—some in excess of 300 percent—have to go.

Then, all parties—utilities, regulators, legislators, and consumer advocates—must come together to create a system that works for all consumers, not just Ameren’s bottom line.

Randy Fritz

In an interview Fritz recounted the story of deregulation in Illinois:

1. In 1997, with Enron (remember that company?!) at the table, deregulation was enacted by the Republican controlled state government. The big utilities wanted deregulation hoping they could make money. CUB agreed to it because it was fed up with annual rate hikes based on a system where the utilities had no incentives to watch their costs. Believing they couldn't stop it, they tried to get the best deal for consumers that they could, Fritz said. In return for deregulation, CUB negotiated some consumer-friendly items including rate rollbacks and a freeze.

2. Gov. Rod Blagojevich was elected, and then appointed utility-friendly regulators to the Illinois Commerce Commission, the board that oversees the utilities. They are less consumer-friendly than the Republican appointees were, Fritz said.

3. Last year, the ICC approved the "reverse auction" and ignored CUB's pleas to look for alternative ways to deliver power. "This (auction) is not the inevitable result of deregulation," Fritz said.

4. The auction took place in secret with limited bidders. The results led to the electricity price increases. This is why Attorney General Lisa Madigan is investigating what happened.

5. Only two companies are certified to provide residential power in Illinois, Ameren and Exelon, formerly Commonwealth Edison. They are two of the most profitable utilities in the U.S.

6. Ameren also owns coal-fired generators, and this parent company is highly profitable. "Ameren's earnings went up 18 percent last year" over its 2005 earnings, Fritz said.

7. So talk about junk bonds and bankruptcy is just flim-flam. Ameren/CILCO is paying its parent company Ameren for the power. "Telling us that Ameren/Illinois or Ameren/CILCO and its other subsidiaries are going broke is like taking money out of your left pocket, transferring it to your right pocket, then showing a 'Hoover flag' (empty pocket) to people saying you're broke," Fritz said.

8. Currently the General Assembly needs to pass a rate freeze to encourage (force?) the power companies to sit down and negotiate some realistic alternatives, Fritz said. The issues are complex, but can be worked out if the companies will come to the table. "It's got to be negotiated among the people that understand the business," Fritz said.

9. Calls for reregulation are ambiguous. "How should we regulate?" Fritz asks. The devil is in the details.

Now news reports say negotiations are taking place in Springfield, even as the freeze legislation is pending.

Here's a prediction: the Democrats control Illinois state government, but not for long if they don't do something about this issue.

Remember California? Gray Davis didn't cause the problems there but he was blamed, and replaced, for not solving the problems.

--Elaine Hopkins