The average price of piped utility gas in the United States is again knocking on the door of nosebleed levels in March 2025

 

LA Times editorial board lol: You’re not alone if it seems like your electric bill is getting too damn high

From the story here, slightly edited for clarity:

State greenhouse gas reduction Fascist government policies are pushing forcing residents to adopt electric cars and appliances that will only increase their electricity consumption.

Pure fascism: Utility sector is profiteering off the federally subsidized green energy push

 Utility stocks are on fire — here are Wall Street analysts' top picks :

The S&P 500 Utilities ETF (XLU) is up more than 12% year to date in a reversal from last year when investors soured on the sector due to expensive projects and high interest rates. ...

Constellation Energy (CEG) is the largest owner of nuclear plants in the US. The Baltimore-based company has been a beneficiary of the government's push to transition to green energies and growing power demand from data centers. Constellation shares are up more than 85% year to date as the company forecasts base earnings to grow by at least 10% annually through the decade. ... The analyst highlights that Constellation produces power at roughly $25 per megawatt hour, while the government's Inflation Reduction Act allows for a selling price floor of $45 per megawatt hour, providing a minimum of $20 margin per megawatt hour. ... Constellation has been operating as a standalone energy provider since 2022 after a spin-off from utility giant Exelon (EXC). The company has been buying back shares and recently upped its dividend ahead of its earnings due on Thursday. ...

NextEra Energy (NEE): The $147-billion-market-cap company is one of the largest electric power generators in the country. While NextEra owns a regulated utility in Florida, investors are more interested in its non-regulated part of the business, NextEra Energy Resources, which involves developing renewable energy in the US. ... "The re-domestication of industry in the US supported by public policy will drive the need for more electricity," CEO John Ketchum told analysts in April. The stock is up about 20% year to date. ...

Among the regulated utilities, Southern Company (SO) is one of the best performers inside the Utility sector year to date, with shares up more than 10%.

It's great to be a Democrat.

The continuing price gouging by US natural gas utilities is astounding

Look at all that daylight between what utilities charge and the gas actually costs.

 

American utilities have used the pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war to price gouge the consumer for natural gas

American utilities have used the pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war to price gouge the consumer. 

Natural gas prices have nosedived 73% since 3Q2022 but utility prices stopped declining a year ago and are down just 14% from peak.

Utility gas actually increased in 4Q2023 and again in 1Q2024.

Look at all that air under the red line.  First time that's happened in decades.

People should be MAKING A STINK!

 

Contact your utility commission and complain about natural gas and electricity prices not coming down

 Utilities Get an Inflation Shock

Electricity and gas providers are encountering a pushback on rate increases:

 

Utilities get to pass through fuel prices, which means customers have been bearing the burden of higher natural-gas prices that surged following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. On average, monthly electricity prices rose 13% in 2022 from a year earlier and 6% in the first 11 months of 2023, according to data from the Labor Department. ... Utility commissioners are either appointed by elected officials or elected themselves, which means they are sensitive to the financial pressures that ratepayers face. ... utilities were quick to ask for an increase on the allowed return on equity when market measures of capital cost rose yet slow to adjust rates when those measures declined.     

 

Has the natural gas portion of your utility bill dropped 60% like the price of natural gas in 2023 from 2022? Mine sure as hell has not.

Here are the average prices per year for Henry Hub natural gas:

2015: 2.62

2016: 2.52

2017: 2.99

2018: 3.15

2019: 2.56

2020: 2.03

2021: 3.89 +91.6%

2022: 6.45 +65.8%

2023: 2.53 -60.7%

That 92% jump in 2021 had nothing to do with Ukraine.

We're being gouged for green energy tomfoolery.

 

COMPLAIN, not to the utility, but to the utility commission. It's the only way.

 

In Michigan, go to:

 

https://www.michigan.gov/mpsc

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The gas and electric utility Consumers Energy here in Michigan is price gouging under Green Energy Joe, yours probably is too

Compared to November 2020, my new budget plan payment for combined natural gas and electric for the coming winter will be 42% higher than it was three years ago, despite the fact that natural gas prices have normalized almost to the penny.

Electricity is up 25% since Green Energy Joe got elected and isn't coming down, but that can't account for it since I consume far less electricity than natural gas on an average basis. More than 65% of my energy consumption in kWh is from natural gas in the last year, as it is every year, less than 35% is from electricity.

A 25% increase to 35% of my old bill would result in a total payment today less than 9% higher. Instead it's 42% higher.

Remember that the utility uses natural gas to generate the electricity, too, and it's paying normal prices today for the gas, not the inflated prices of the recent past.

There's no excuse for the extra cost I'm paying.

The utility is price gouging.

 

 

 

Overall inflation reversed course and ticked higher in August 2023 on a monthly jump in overall energy prices

 Overall inflation jumped up to 3.7% year-over-year and 0.6% month-over-month on a 5.6% jump in overall energy inflation month-over-month in August 2023.

Month-over-month, electricity was up 0.2%, gasoline was up 10.6%, piped utility gas was up 0.6%, fuel oil and other fuels were up 8.4%. Meanwhile food was up 0.2%.

Core inflation (overall inflation less food and energy) increased mom 0.3% and is still running 4.4% yoy.

Services inflation is still running high at 5.4% yoy, less rent of shelter at 3.1% yoy.

Shelter inflation rose mom 0.3% in both measures, and 7.2% yoy seasonally adjusted.

Going forward I expect inflation pressures to persist because of Biden administration green energy fantasies and hatred of fossil fuels combining with OPEC+ production cuts continuing indefinitely. 

My local utility has repriced my fixed monthly payment for natural gas and electricity for the next year

 The new price is down 30% from last year's horrendous price.

The monthly payment will now resemble the high end of normal I experienced in the years prior to the Russia-Ukraine War.

Like a boot off my neck.

400k without power in California

 

 

... hurricane-force winds ...

 

The storms won’t be enough to officially end California’s ongoing drought but they have helped.

 

There was nothing wrong with the coal or natural gas plants of the Tennessee Valley Authority: It was one-off wind damage and too many far-flung customers dependent on its electricity for heat

 Cold weather pushed up electricity use in TVA's seven-state region where more than 60% of homes are heated by electricity. ...

TVA Chief Operating Officer Don Moul is heading an investigation of the problems that led to the power outages last week. Moul said in a telephone interview that high winds damaged several of TVA's protective structures at the Cumberland plant and several gas-fired combustion turbines used for such peak power periods. TVA's directive to local power companies to cut some of their energy use was the most efficient means to respond to the inadequate energy supply, Moul said.

More. 

 

The left, of course, is blaming the fossil fuels themselves instead of wind damage to existing energy infrastructure, whose maintenance has been neglected in the rage for so-called green energy and against coal:

"[T]he mandatory blackouts were due to coal and gas failures," [Amy] Kelly [the Tennessee representative for the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign] said.

     

The hysteria of this prejudiced response is matched, however, by the feckless customers of the federally-run utility, whose only care is that their power was cut when it was 5 degrees F outside, and on Christmas Eve:

 

"Why would anyone in their right mind decide it is a GOOD idea to have rolling blackouts today? First of all, it is a whopping 5 degrees outside and second, it is Christmas Eve ... This is ridiculous."

Gee what a coincidence: Natural gas inventories in the Lower 48 are down 17.6% year over year and my utility just raised my monthly budget plan payment for the next year by 18%

 

Day Eight: 3k still without power in Michigan from the electric utility Consumers Energy

 

They've trotted out the CEO of the company in radio ads the last two days to thank everyone for their patience.

No one apologizes anymore in this country, for anything.

My incompetent Michigan utility Consumers Energy can't deliver electricity for four days but thinks free ice cream will substitute for doing its job

How about not hectoring me day in and day out about conserving energy?

How about not retiring generating capacity and having to buy power from other states?

How about concentrating on delivering energy from reliable sources instead of risking our future on tenuous green schemes?

How about hiring more workers to keep the gas and power flowing to the people who pay your salaries?

 

Michigan is increasingly like a third world shit-hole: Day four without electrical power from Consumers Energy, over 81k still affected

My electric power went out Tuesday night at about 11pm.

It is still out.

Over 81,000 customers, just of Consumers Energy, remain without power four days after a line of storms came through.

The utility runs ads on the radio incessantly saying "Count on us"!

It spends more time and money trying to get consumers to curtail electric usage than it does providing it.

It decommissions coal fired generating capacity and then turns around and buys electricity from Indiana. Under Democrat Gretchen Whitmer we are increasingly like California. 

The utility is a cruel joke, especially this week as humidity levels soared with the heat. Indoor temperatures at night above 80 degrees F make for miserable sleeping, when sleeping occurs at all.

The air is full of the sound of generators, day and night. Lines are long at gasoline stations where people wait to fill their cans to get them through another night.

Green energy isn't green, and the power company doesn't provide it, green or otherwise.

 

 

LOL, Michigan's rapacious utility Consumers Energy delays roll-out of new Summer Peak Rate program due to COVID-19

 

Due to COVID-19, Peak Pricing has Been Delayed Until 2021:

Given the economic challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, we are delaying the implementation of the summer peak pricing period until 2021.

While you will still see this rate code (1001) on your bill, we will not be moving forward with the peak pricing for this summer as initially communicated. You will instead have a flat rate for electricity throughout the remainder of 2020.

The Summer Peak Rate includes a peak period from June 1 through September 30. The peak period consists of “on-peak” and “off-peak” rate prices:

• “On-peak” rate price – From 2 to 7 p.m., Monday through Friday, your electricity rate will cost about 1.5 times higher than the “off-peak” rate price.
• “Off-peak” rate price – customers will pay a lower rate price for electricity used outside of on-peak times. This is the same rate you would pay October through May.

New summer "Time of Use" rate coming for millions of Michigan customers of Consumers Energy in 2020 between 2pm and 7pm Monday through Friday: Penalty electricity rate rises 13.7% over summer 2019 penalty rate

The smart meter installation roll-out everywhere in recent years now affords the utility the ability to measure usage of each customer for the designated five hour period. In future customers are promised that ability also, in order to monitor their own usage hour by hour, through an online dashboard for their accounts.

Presently penalty electric rates are imposed in the summers for all use above 600 kWh without regard to time of day. Once you hit the threshold, you pay at a higher rate for the electricity. In my case that usually happens by day 20 of the month. This new way eliminates the 600 kWh threshold. Use energy during the five hour window on day one and you pay the penalty rate, period.

Some will be able to game this because they aren't home during the day anyway. For the rest of us, however, it will be a different story, shifting energy use to the mornings before 2pm and the evenings after 7pm, or to weekends, and perhaps turning off the A/C and shifting activities to the basement to beat the heat. 

Temperatures in Grand Rapids, MI collapsed from 85 to 71 after 1:53am Saturday July 20th as storms knocked out power to thousands in West Michigan

The Sams Club in Kentwood lost power in the early morning storm, closing down the store and gas station for the day Saturday, which is quite unusual.

Workers there were observed after 1:00pm at the rear of the building tossing no longer refrigerated and frozen foods.

Consumers Energy crews were observed near the intersection with the store attempting to restore power in the sweltering heat.

The heat index not much later soared to 108 by 2:53pm.

A second round of storms after 4:00pm Saturday crashed actual air temperatures from 89 to 74, complicating the on-going power restoration efforts.

More than 500,000 without power in Michigan a day after ‘worst storm’ of the year:

While there are outages across the state, the Southeast Side of Michigan has the highest concentration. DTE Energy this morning said 375,000 of its customers remain without electricity after what it called the “worst storm” its line workers have dealt with this year.

" ... The weather event downed 1,100 power lines, making this the worst storm our region has experienced this year and one of the largest since the March 2017 wind storm," the utility said. ...

In West Michigan and the central part of the state, Consumers Energy was reporting about 122,000 customers without power today. Great Lakes Energy added to the tally with nearly 5,000 outages, mostly in Lake, Oceana and Osceola counties. ...

While there were strong wind gusts across the Lower Peninsula on Saturday, the most damaging happened in the areas of Kent and Ottawa counties [in West Michigan], the National Weather Service said. The damaging winds that took the house apart in the Jenison area were described as a “microburst.”

When news reports boast that Michigan's Consumers Energy has 300-350 billion cubic feet of natural gas in storage, that's not really true either

Working gas available is hardly 49% of the current 308.8 billion cubic feet total storage reported by Consumers Energy, or only 150.9 billion cubic feet.

From all companies in Michigan available working gas in storage is only 671 billion cubic feet, not the much-vaunted 1.1 trillion cubic feet. Still, Michigan has more capacity than any other state. Its stored working gas would supply the needs of 4.3 million average households for one year before needing to be restocked, or about 11 million people for one year. Michigan's population is 10 million. Business users are not included in this math.

But when a mere compressor fire nearly incapacitates one utility's ability to service all of its 2 million customers when they need heat the most, think what an Electro Magnetic Pulse event might do.

That's what keeps me up at night. 

The Michigan Public Service Commission clearly states in footnote one to "Michigan Natural Gas Storage Field Summary":

Working gas means the maximum gas that can be cycled in and out of straoge [sic, read "storage"].  Base Gas means gas that is not cycled in and provides pressure support. 

Michigan's natural gas debacle last week went misreported because of an opaque, indifferent utility and stupid reporters

Over and over again we heard that the facility where there was a fire last week accounted for 64% of the utility's supply of natural gas to its customers in Michigan. And we're still hearing that today in some reports. Unfortunately, this isn't really true. It's unnecessarily alarming. 

The Ray field at Macomb has 41 billion cubic feet of stored natural gas, as only The Detroit News noted at the time, but during a normal winter when Consumers Energy pumps 2.5 billion cubic feet a day, the utility is supplying 150 billion cubic feet in two months' time. It can't all come from Macomb's storage, obviously. It's piped in from all over to be compressed at Macomb and at other stations. The problem isn't the supply, just as the utility indeed kept emphasizing, stating in various reports that Consumers has 300-350 billion cubic feet of stored gas. The problem was too much of the utility's compressor capability (64%) is centralized at Macomb, which they didn't want to emphasize when it suddenly went off-line automatically in the wake of the fire. Examine the news accounts and you will see that the reporters simplistically characterized these details and misled the public.

Critics of Consumers Energy's paltry $3 million in infrastructure spending over the last five years have a point. This utility in Michigan is notorious for spending more dark money than any other to influence politics. Now that they've had this fire, they'll have to spend more on infrastructure, but it remains for Consumers Energy to install more redundancy in its system to prevent against what happened last week. But don't hold your breath. The utility is as unlikely to do what is best for Michigan as reporters are likely suddenly to become more intelligent.

God forbid we have an EMP. I doubt any of this infrastructure would function properly after such an event, redundancy or no.

That's what alarms me. 

Critics call for overhaul after Consumers Energy CEO, who makes $6.8M, asks Michiganders to turn down heat:

On Wednesday night, as temperatures dropped to -43 degrees with the wind chill, Consumers Energy sent an emergency message to Michiganders' cell phones asking them to turn down their thermostats to 65 degrees. 

That followed a similar plea from Consumers Energy CEO Patti Poppe, who reported a Wednesday explosion that damaged a Consumers Energy facility that accounts for 64 percent of its supply. In a Facebook message, Poppe urged Michiganders to "protect the system" by turning down the heat. 

But many Michiganders responded to Poppe's plea with defiance on social media during the emergency, frustrated with being asked to pay ever-increasing rates to a private company that essentially runs a monopoly.

The facility where there was a fire is a compressor facility tasked with the job of pressurizing natural gas for its pipeline network. The facility accounts for 64% of pressurized supply, not 64% of supply, a key detail still not reported clearly in the media, which at the time unnecessarily alarmed the public during a period of dangerous, bitter cold weather. 

Consumers Energy investigates fire that led to state natural-gas alert:

The Ray plant contributes a maximum of 64 percent of the company's daily average of 2.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas to customers. Before gas can be put into the pipeline system, however, it needs to be compressed. The Ray station sits above Consumers' largest underground natural gas storage area with a capacity of 41.2 billion cubic feet of storage. Overall, Ray can compress 117 million cubic feet of gas per day, reaching pressures of 1,800 pounds per square inch. ...

"Most of the damage was on plant two. We have plant one flowing and three mostly has heat-related damage. We are working on that now," [VP Garrick Rochow] said. "Plant three will take maybe three weeks to get back online. Plant two is more significant. It was closer to the fire and flames and heat. It looks like it originated there. It is out for the season, but not going to impact ability to deliver to customers."

The layout of the Ray facility, which was built out over time, is three separate buildings and three separate plants on the site at 69338 Omo Road, in Armada Township. Station No. 3, which was built in 2011, is the largest of the three.

"We don't know what activated the fire gate system," Rochow said. "We are looking at that. We do know that in the process of venting the gas that the natural gas caught fire. There was a fireball like in the pictures. As a precautionary measure, plant 1 and 2 were in operation and fire-gated. Personnel fire-gated the entire facility. When that occurred, probably 50 yards separated the buildings .... gas from plants one and two caught fire."

Rochow said it is unclear why automatic controls vented the system and how the gas caught fire. "We can see the sequence of events but still looking at the reasons," he said. ...

But Rochow said one lesson Consumers might have learned is that the plants might still be too close to one another, given the fact that venting of gas of all stations at the same time led to the fireball igniting everything at once.

"We have systems there and the proximity of the systems has eliminated (favorable) redundancy," he said. "We will learn from it and think about how investments can create more redundancy on that particular site."