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zorphium t1_j1ymvi7 wrote

Reply to comment by Coffee-FlavoredSweat in Group opposed to Maine consumer-owned utility turns in signatures for a ballot question of its own by DrMcMeow

How do u get 21B from any of the numbers you provided above

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Coffee-FlavoredSweat t1_j1ynq58 wrote

You’re right, it’s actually more than that, if I use 9 billion principal, and 15 billion interest, total would be 24 billion.

$80 per month per customer just for debt service, before paying for any actual electricity.

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redcoat777 t1_j1z5blr wrote

where did you get your interest rate? what payment term did you use? Using a 15 year loan at 3.84% (current 10 year treasury bond rate) on a 9B loan gives 2.85B of interest. That is a monthly “payment” of $79 per customer per month, which funnily you did get right. And using some base assumptions about profit it seems your numbers there are in the right ball park. i got $20/mo. So it seems like for an extra $60 per month we get to own and control our own grid.

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Coffee-FlavoredSweat t1_j1z8jsc wrote

There’s no way they would be able to finance $9B on a 15-year loan. It would likely be 30 to 35 years and closer to a 5% rate.

I did say that it was napkin math, though, and I’m just a guy on Reddit. You seem to have come to roughly the same numbers, though.

The $60 per month is just debt service for owning our own power company. Then we have to pay for the power generation, and transmission costs on top of that.

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redcoat777 t1_j206xtk wrote

30 years at 5% increases the total interest to 8.4B and drops the payment to $48/mo. Pulling out the $20/mo from their profits gives an extra payment of $28/mo. Though of course with a capital project, trying to figure out how much it “hurts” to make payments has to consider inflation. If we count on 3% inflation (which is conservative) it makes the effective interest rate 2%, and a monthly inflation adjusted payment of $33, which is $13/mo after you pull their $20/mo profit margin out. that seems like a good deal to me honestly. But like you said we dont have a true picture of the cost, loan terms, or their profit.

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