I spent my career at a municipal, we were/are part of BANC BA. It may seem a bit unfair, but we used mostly WAPA Transmission that was public only. Our Path 66 rights were on The Oregon _ California Transmission project that PG&E tried to block for years. It was built by public power for public power and is operated by public power. The vast majority of the 500kV transmission in the Pacific Northwest was built by and is operated by Bonneville Power Administration. TVA built and operates broad swaths of Transmission in the South. I might take your comments that public power takes a free ride with a grain of salt.
I never claimed that public power entities get their transmission service for free. They pay lots of money for their transmission facilities and transmission service. I simply explained how they can benefit in certain ways from transmission upgrades constructed by others without contributing to the costs of those upgrades. And this does not apply to all public power entities
Matt, are these “community choice” power entities we have in California examples of non-jurisdictional utilities? I’m trying to figure out how they add value, if indeed they do at all.
I’m not familiar with community choice entities but I don’t think so. Municipal utilities are utilities owned by a city or other local governmental entities. They have exclusive service territories and provide the same kind of utility service as investor owned utilities. Most were formed in the 1920s and 30s. The theory was they could provide cheaper service because they were non-profit entities. In general that hasn’t worked out because they can’t achieve economies of scale and aren’t very efficient. Co-ops are rural utilities mostly formed at the same time because regular utilities weren’t providing service in rural areas.
Matt, these sound very similar. They are also non profits, whose directors are local politicians with no energy expertise. They make the promise that each household can select 100% green energy. They claim they will eventually be cheaper because they are non profits. Citizens are auto enrolled, I.e. you have to opt out. If you know anyone familiar with these, please send me their contact info or have them contact me. Thanks.
From what I can tell from an i ternate search, community choice involves municipalities buying power from retail service providers. Not really a utility function at all
I spent my career at a municipal, we were/are part of BANC BA. It may seem a bit unfair, but we used mostly WAPA Transmission that was public only. Our Path 66 rights were on The Oregon _ California Transmission project that PG&E tried to block for years. It was built by public power for public power and is operated by public power. The vast majority of the 500kV transmission in the Pacific Northwest was built by and is operated by Bonneville Power Administration. TVA built and operates broad swaths of Transmission in the South. I might take your comments that public power takes a free ride with a grain of salt.
I never claimed that public power entities get their transmission service for free. They pay lots of money for their transmission facilities and transmission service. I simply explained how they can benefit in certain ways from transmission upgrades constructed by others without contributing to the costs of those upgrades. And this does not apply to all public power entities
Matt, are these “community choice” power entities we have in California examples of non-jurisdictional utilities? I’m trying to figure out how they add value, if indeed they do at all.
I’m not familiar with community choice entities but I don’t think so. Municipal utilities are utilities owned by a city or other local governmental entities. They have exclusive service territories and provide the same kind of utility service as investor owned utilities. Most were formed in the 1920s and 30s. The theory was they could provide cheaper service because they were non-profit entities. In general that hasn’t worked out because they can’t achieve economies of scale and aren’t very efficient. Co-ops are rural utilities mostly formed at the same time because regular utilities weren’t providing service in rural areas.
Matt, these sound very similar. They are also non profits, whose directors are local politicians with no energy expertise. They make the promise that each household can select 100% green energy. They claim they will eventually be cheaper because they are non profits. Citizens are auto enrolled, I.e. you have to opt out. If you know anyone familiar with these, please send me their contact info or have them contact me. Thanks.
From what I can tell from an i ternate search, community choice involves municipalities buying power from retail service providers. Not really a utility function at all