Electricities deal promises future relief
Published December 12, 2014
Editorial by Rocky Mount Telegram, December 10, 2014.
Here’s a scary thought experiment: How many communities in the country do you think hold a favorable view of the cost of their utilities?
Our guess would be not many. We’d venture to say more people are more disgusted about their utilities bill than they are about Congress and partisan gridlock.
If there is any difference in Rocky Mount, it’s that the complaints lodged by local residents about utility bills are actually spot on.
Utilities costs in the city truly are obscene. And rates have been so unreasonably high for so unconscionably long that many of us have become hopelessly accustomed to the monthly horror that awaits us in the mailbox. For years, residents righteously raged about their bills. Local and state leaders continually vowed to investigate but eventually struck out and returned with some version of this statement: “There’s not much we can do about it.”
A longer version of the story goes something like this: You see, the power agency we are a part of went into debt decades ago – billions of dollars into debt – to build some power plants that we never wound up using. And all that debt? Oh we kept the debt. That’s why the bills are so high. Sorry.
But that narrative began to change this year. In a stroke of good timing and tough plowing, local and state leaders have found a way forward with a plan that would end our long, tortured ties with ElectriCities. That plan received a big boost Tuesday, when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved Duke Energy’s offer to buy out the debt-wracked power agency and provide power to the cities served by ElectriCities.
Clearing this hurdle is a huge move in the right direction, but the nightmare isn’t quite over. Because of other state approvals and federal regulatory hurdles still remaining, this $1.2 billion deal won’t be finalized until the end of 2015. That is the phase of our enduring nightmare when we start to realize that it’s only just a nightmare, and we’re going to wake up eventually.
If it spells relief in 2016, we’ll take it.
