Average yearly homeowner electric bill increase is $1219
Above: Dale Ross in 2017 when the green dream hadn’t yet turned to a nightmare. From Georgetown View. The following opinion piece is from Chuck DeVore, a friend of WUWT:
Texas town’s environmental narcissism makes Al Gore happy while sticking its citizens with the bill
By Chuck DeVore
Political leaders in a college town in central Texas won wide praise from former Vice President Al Gore and the larger Green Movement when they decided to go “100 percent renewable” seven years ago. Now, however, they are on the defensive over electricity costs that have their residents paying more than $1,000 per household in higher electricity charges over the last four years.
That’s right – $1,219 per household in higher electricity costs for the 71,000 residents of Georgetown, Texas, all thanks to the decision of its Republican mayor, Dale Ross, to launch a bold plan to shift the city’s municipal utility to 100 percent renewable power in 2012.
In short order, Ross was elevated to celebrity status, appearing in scores of articles and videos, both at home and abroad. Al Gore made it a point to feature the Texas Republican mayor at renewable energy conferences as well. Ross was even featured in one of Gore’s documentaries.
But while Ross was being lauded far and wide, the residents of his town were paying a steep price. His decision to bet on renewables resulted in the city budget getting dinged by a total of $29.8 million in the four years from 2015 to 2018. Georgetown’s electric costs were $3.5 million over budget in 2015, ballooning to $6.3 million in 2016, the same year the mayor locked his municipal utility into 20- and 25-year wind and solar energy contracts to make good on his 100 percent renewable pledge.
By 2017, the mayor’s green gamble was undercut by the cheap natural gas prices brought about by the revolution in high-tech fracking. Power that year cost the city’s budget $9.5 million more than expected, rising to $10.5 million last year, according to budget documents reported by The Williamson County Sun.
Whether Mayor Ross and his colleagues on the Georgetown City Council were motivated by good intentions, political machinations, or mere vanity is unknown. What is known is that Georgetown’s municipal utility, an integral part of the city budget, is hemorrhaging red ink thanks to those long term renewable energy contracts.
Here is the best part from the article:
The mayor, who not long ago was approaching ubiquitous status with the media, could not be found by the local press to comment on his city’s budget-busting power deficit, declining to comment by both phone and email.
Full story, much more here.
UPDATE: My headline originally erroneously stated $1200 per month when it should have been per year. Fixed within 10 minutes of publication.
Another example of how Socialism always fails. Incompetent government officials will inevitably make poor decisions – the burden falls on the citizenry – and the controlling hand of a market economy has been manacled. Friedrich Hayek was quite correct and the burgeoning power of governments all over the world seems to get stronger everyday – especially since the press is so weak, co-opted and misinformed.
The Georgetown city utility site and statement of problems…..
https://gus.georgetown.org/electric/
From the city web site –
“The crux of the current challenge hinges on the large amount of energy the City must sell on the market that is not currently consumed in Georgetown. Like most city-owned utilities, Georgetown contracted for more energy than it currently needs. Any energy that is not consumed by Georgetown customers must be sold into the energy market.
Over the past few years, the energy market in Texas experienced a fundamental change. Forecasts provided by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the State’s energy grid operator, have proven to be unreliable. What were perceived as anomalies in 2016 and 2017, such as reduced consumption, unpredictable pricing, and unusually cold weather, masked the true impact of a depressed global energy market. The effect of depressed energy prices became abundantly obvious in 2018.
At the same time, the utility is seeing a drop in consumer demand which is largely driven by conservation efforts, energy-saving technologies, and more energy-efficient new construction.”
Only a govt. could call it a “depressed energy market” – all of the users who actually pay the the bills would call it cheap energy…:^)
All the drama over “$1200/year or $250/year” misses the point – green energy COSTS MORE. Provably so. That’s the fundamental issue. It was sold as a cost savings, and doesn’t do that at all.
But isn’t it worth the extra cost to allow the mayor you elected to virtual signal to Al Gore and the media? Where are your priorities?
What would it cost a homeowner to put in a whole house generator, run it off bottled gas, and just leave the grid for the next 23 years?
I was wondering the same thing.