I was told it would be a minimal impact to my bill, when I pushed for specifics I was told only a few pennies more than normal and that they couldn’t be specific because of the fluctuation of market pricing. That made sense then.

My bill, however, is double what it normally is. I’m trying to understand how this is a “minimal impact” to my bill and why would anyone down play the financial impact when their customers are trying to make sure they can pay the bill. What was wrong with saying there will be a 40% increase over Tier 1?

When I was transfered to the escalation desk today I explained to Neil that my anger was not about the price increase. Excel has a monopoly so they can rape us if they want – rape being defined here as taking without consent from the individual. As there are no other options for elctricity that I’m aware of in terms of competitors, I have no way to “give implied consent” by continuing to use their services. It would be implied consent if I failed to move to another company who had a similar plan.

I was upset that when I did the responsible thing and tried to get information about the impact to me so I could make sound financial decisions – I was deliberately mislead.

Neil did his job in trying to defend Excel and said no one knew what the rate increase would be until it was billed out. How can any company not know what percentage increase they are going to apply to their customer base?

Excel Management either knew and deliberately did not tell their employees so they could absolve themselves of the “miscommunication” from their staff OR didn’t know and that seems an incompetent way to run a business.

Why was the information I’ve found on several websites today NOT RELAYED TO ME BY EXCEL WHEN I CALLED THEM DIRECTLY TO ASK!

Is it fraud to withhold information about the new rate when directly asked and encouraging people to think something will have a minimal financial impact when it will almost double a bill?

The only way I can see to have kept my usage in the first tier this summer was to use no air conditioner – this would have caused the fridge to work harder to keep food cool. Unplugged my freezer – this would have caused more trips to the store to purchase food. Unplugged my computer – I hardly use the TV or radio. Not used the oven – but the microwave uses electricity too.

In this economy too many people are struggling to make ends meet – to try and replace appliances with energy star, install meters and ceiling fans isn’t in most peoples budgets. They are just trying to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads.

This rate increase forces a negative financial impact on consumers. Spend money to update appliances, spend money to drive to the store – too far to walk. Use less electricity cooking by eating out – spend more money on gas and food.

This may have looked good on paper to the PUC, but in practical application it is only hurting people financially. Especially since details were withheld when people called in to ask. (Have I mentioned that before?) Were those details with held from the PUC?

Whether Excel’s intent was to line their pockets or provide an incentive to reduce consumption is irrelevant – by with holding information they took away my right and ability to make a wise financial choice.

If it was deliberate – was it fraud?

I am an oxygen patient who has had an oxygen concentrator at home for 8 years. By going back to about 2005, I find that my electrical usage is always higher in price than my gas, winter or summer. We have redone windows, added more insulation, bought energy efficient appliances, switched to gas range, florescent lighting, to keep KW usage around 1000KW.

I have had different models of concentrators but regardless, they draw energy. And now I am having to pay extra for this.

I feel as though I will have to stop breathing so that my family can pay this bill.

NO THANKS for your concern, PUC!!!

Someone needs to look into this!

My energy frugality measures include pedestal fans in occupied rooms, each of which consumes 25 W and provides quite a bit of comfort on the hottest days. A whole-house fan (about 1 kW) running for 30 minutes at bedtime and in the morning make life in this house pleasant (or at least tolerable on 100+ degree days with 80 degree nights). All lamps which are turned on more than a few minutes per day have CFLs installed. Our electricity usage in summer months averages 240 kWh, increasing to about 300 kWh in winter months due to an extremely inefficient forced-air furnace fan motor (I now wish we had spent the additional $400 for the variable-speed DC motor when we replace the furnace four years ago)

I would like to suggest that anyone with extraordinarily high energy bills, especially those practicing the energy-saving measures of Thomas and Chris, either borrow if possible, or invest $25 in a Kill-A-Watt meter. Use of this or a similar device will help pinpoint the source of the energy hogs.

When we purchased this house in 1989, we appreciated that the previous owner left their old refrigerator. Included with it was an instruction manual stating something like “newer, larger refrigerators use more energy and are noisier than older, smaller, obsolete refrigerators.” We put up with the noise for ten years before monitoring the energy usage of this klunker (not with a Kill-A-Watt, but with a watt-hour meter borrowed from my workplace). It was surprising that the klunker reefer accounted for about 40% of our electric bill! The beast was replaced with an Energy Star refrigerator and resulted in a 25% reduction in energy usage.