I don't know about the credits thing, but pricing based upon amount of usage makes sense. We not only have to get off the opioid-like fossil fuel addiction, but at least in the near term we have to be much more frugal in our electricity usage.

From the letter:

>Here in Vermont, the Legislature must be pushed to price electricity on a sliding scale with the lowest users paying a lower rate and as usage goes up, so does the price per kilowatt. We are in the process of exchanging clean electricity for dirty fossil fuels for heating and transportation. There will have to be a credit built in for the higher usage driven by clean and efficient heat pumps and electric, vehicles as these must be encouraged. It must still be weighted to avoid overconsumption.

They force us to use more electricity ev's, heat pumps, stoves, lawn mowers etc. but then want penalties for doing so. Do you like Venezuela? Cause this is how we get there.

What?

Most rates already do this, you pay a lower price for a set number of kWh and then the cost ratchets up.

> There will have to be a credit built in for the higher usage driven by clean and efficient heat pumps and electric

Anyone who pays attention to politics knows this is BS. Remember the last time they tried this crap with a similar scheme they were going to give rebates to the poor after spending higher amounts for gas and heating oil. Problem was that required an entire new set of hires and expenses to dole out the cash that had already been spent. The state sure does love creating new administrative bodies. Nothing new.

We get the VAST majority our electricity in VT from non-emitting CO2 sources. Pricing electricity based on usage doesn’t make sense at all.

How that works and the effective differences depends upon your direct supplier for the most party, but even with that, it isn't a steady graduation of price as usage goes up. What you're referring to is movement from plateau to plateau.

The idea to remove the plateaus in favor of steady up slope.

And we need to keep on getting as much electricity as possible from those non-CO2 emitting sources. But even with renewables (even going with the most genuine of those) requires resources, and I'd suggest we don't want our usage to outstrip those resources.

Does this have to be permanent or very long term? We'd find out, but from this view I come down very strongly on the side of "we'll find out".

Who wants penalties for electricity use? The letter calls for sliding scale prices, not penalties.

As we transition to using more electricity for EVs and such it would make sense to have some incentive to not overuse/waste electricity. If consumption increases too quickly we may have to get electricity from elsewhere (could be fossil fuels).

More generally speaking, even if something is renewable we still shouldn't waste it.

I agree, and VTers are usually pretty good about not wasting stuff. That said this is an expensive place to live and electricity isn’t the way we contribute to climate change.

>electricity isn’t the way we contribute to climate change.

As of 2017 electricity generation accounted for 6% of CO2 emissions, which is small. But transportation and fuel (including heating) accounted for a combined 58%. If a large portion of our transportation and fuel use instead comes from electricity, our CO2 emissions from electricity will rise dramatically.

Also, a sliding scale would make wealthier individuals pay more, so your point about the high cost of living in Vermont I think is moot.

This shit is hilarious, considering the state just gave a big excemption to Global Foundries.

Pushing the blame to the average consumer is misdirection, industry is the real culprit.

Do we though? There was a recent Brave Little State episode about this exact topic. Worth a listen.

In 2021 we got nearly 100% of our electricity from renewables. So yeah, we actually do.

https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=VT

Yeah like obviously the average consumer will have to do something, but this type of messaging likes to make you feel bad for heating your house. Meanwhile drake gets to fly a 787 15 minutes and generate more carbon than your house will generate in a year.

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Replacing heating and transportation with electricity is a long term issue. We don’t even have the infrastructure or resources in place for that yet. On top of that, many VTers do not have the resources to convert to electric vehicles and their inefficient homes will use more electricity and they’ll pay more if we use some usage scale to determine rates. This will hurt the poor and do little to nothing to address climate change.

By the time we are converted to electricity we won’t even be using the same technology to generate power.

Right, the energy we use that's produced in Vermont is close to 100% from Renewables. If you notice the article you linked also says only 1/3 of the consumed energy we use in Vermont actually comes from VT. Where does the other 2/3 come from?

Economics 101. Sliding scale for some means the rest will have to pick up the tab. You can argue about the fairness of it all but the fact remains someone will have to make up for the loss. Most likely larger families like mine that use a fair amount of power. That's what happens when you have five kids. And trust me there ain't no stinking way the power co's will eat it either.

Edit: Also of note the "sliding scale" he speaks of is not the typical one where you pay based on ability it's just on use lower the use lower the rate higher the use higher the rate. I can see the guys down at my local garage loving this with the compressor and welders running all day. Just another boondoggle.

HydroQuebec but that’s fairly irrelevant to the idea that our electricity usage contributes to climate change.

> industry is the real culprit.

Ya I think of this everytime I have my septic tank pumped and get the add on fee for saving Lake Champlain. Way over here on the other side of the state. The shit even gets spread on a field in NH not VT. It's as if we are governed by morons. Anyone can pop up sat and aerial photos and see where the runoff comes from.

Only about 1/4 of our electricity comes from Hydro Quebec. And another 12% from other hydro resources, 19% nuclear and about 10% each from solar, wind and biomass, the rest is from the mix of sources tied to the New England power grid. Listen to the BLS episode. I was enlightened and not trying to argue but I was of the same mindset and have a better understanding from learning more about it.

I’m not sure of the point, our electricity is almost 100% renewable. Our electricity usage isn’t contributing to the climate change and a usage fee would harm low income VTers.

The EIA shows 46% coming from hydro and 0% from nuclear. BLS seems to be using some dated and no longer accurate information. 🤷🏼‍♂️

> We don’t even have the infrastructure or resources in place for that yet

We are with GMP and if it even looks like it might get windy we could lose power. The infrastructure and capacity of the substation here is maxed so much so that they offer extra incentives for having solar along the line here. How on earth they think they can manage all these heat pumps and ev's is beyond me.

I remember just a few weeks ago the generators down in mass wrote a letter to the leg about just this and said there was no way they could keep up with the proposed mandates to move things to electric.

With the push for electrification of everything ( heating, cooling, vehicles) etc., how about we incentivize the plentiful production of clean/zero carbon power ( solar, wind, hydro, nuclear) instead of going out of our way to penalizing the end residential users who are being pushed to electrify?

If clean electricity is in reliable, plentiful and inexpensive supply, then people will find it a lot more compelling to drop their 30yr old oil furnace as a primary heat source.

How about providing incentives ( carrot ) for landlords to upgrade their systems and levy penalties (stick) for not using systems below a certain efficiency level after say 5-10 years?

Or more direct grants for rural and poor families to upgrade the insulation and systems in their houses instead of indirect rebates that they may not be able to front the initial cost of?

There’s a hundred ways out of the problem, but increasing electricity rates even more will stall a lot of other progress being made.

I dunno about that. Many disadvantaged populations really on electric for heat due to poor credit or not bekng able to come up with the capital to invest in a large amount of non electric heat. The sliding scale out have the opposite impact on that struggling population. It would be a win for the middle class but at what expense

If we do this right, there will be a lot of equity built into how we move forward. My argument is we need to move forward and make that equity a foundation of the effort.

I don't believe we have the time to wait until things seem more fair and better prepared.

I don't disagree. If we can do something we should. Give it a shot and if it is not working we can adjust. Sometimes, doing anything is better than doing nothing.

>Sliding scale for some means the rest will have to pick up the tab.

Yes, that's literally what a "sliding scale" is. Some pay below-average rate, others pay above-average rate.

Your concerns could be resolved by simply factoring the number of people in the residence. It would have to be for it to be fair anyway, since it's people that use electricity, not residences.

The heat in my house cares not how many people are inside. Some utilities yes but not all. I would also guess that the major driver in my elec use is water pumps, fans etc all things that would be running regardless. Cheers!

True, true. I said that just because you said you'd probably be a heavy user with a family of 5, as if the additional people were directly contributing.

Then there is another issue I would take with all this as well and that is why should the govt have a list of my appliances like heat pumps etc that may or may not qualify for a different rate as suggested in the article. There really is an issue with collecting and qualifying it. Imagine the cost of keeping and collecting all that info. Only new heat pumps or what about one you had installed 2 years ago are you out of luck? Who will verify the claims as I am sure many will be tempted to claim more new items to lower the bill? That's just human nature. I agree with much of the intent of these bills but as usual I find them to not be well thought through and completely ignoring of collateral consequences.

There certainly are issues with it. I personally think something like a carbon tax would be more effective, and it would better target actual sources of carbon.

There'd need to be something to limit the impact on lower income Vermonters, though (the ones least likely to have an EV or live close to where they work). I don't know what that'd look like.