How to SUBSTANTIALLY reduce electricity use?

[TiltonBB]

Helpful hint: I knew someone years ago who would take his electric meter out, turn it upside down, and plug it back in. The four prongs on the back make that easy to do.

His claim was that he would let his meter run backwards for a week and doing that would take two weeks off of his electric bill. Interesting theory.

My uncle happened to manage the General Electric Meter Division in Dover, NH. Several years later I told him the story. He was very excited to tell me that they had fixed that flaw and if you inverted your meter now it would run twice as fast forward.

A large restaurant owner in Saugus, MA paid someone to take his meter apart and change the internal gears so that it ran at about 1/3 the correct speed. That went on for many years until he was caught and convicted.

Posted for informational purposes only. Don't try this at home!

[ITD]

Originally Posted by TiltonBB

Helpful hint: I knew someone years ago who would take his electric meter out, turn it upside down, and plug it back in. The four prongs on the back make that easy to do.

His claim was that he would let his meter run backwards for a week and doing that would take two weeks off of his electric bill. Interesting theory.

My uncle happened to manage the General Electric Meter Division in Dover, NH. Several years later I told him the story. He was very excited to tell me that they had fixed that flaw and if you inverted your meter now it would run twice as fast forward.

A large restaurant owner in Saugus, MA paid someone to take his meter apart and change the internal gears so that it ran at about 1/3 the correct speed. That went on for many years until he was caught and convicted.

Posted for informational purposes only. Don't try this at home!

A long time ago I had a neighbor who was an electrician and decided it was a good idea to bypass his electric meter. He got caught, had to go to court, paid thousands in fines and all the electricity he stole plus interest. He was a nice guy, but a crook is still a crook at the end of the day.

[jbolty]

Originally Posted by ITD

A long time ago I had a neighbor who was an electrician and decided it was a good idea to bypass his electric meter. He got caught, had to go to court, paid thousands in fines and all the electricity he stole plus interest. He was a nice guy, but a crook is still a crook at the end of the day.

Meters are locked and sealed with a lead disk which has a code pressed into to reveal tampering but in the world of today many places have smart meters that no humans read so tampering might not be discovered but I would guess for those, unplugging it would be detected by the system.

My dad worked for NH co-op for many years and caught a few meter shenanigans

[tis]

We have an empty house and I saw the electric dept there one day so walked over. She said we haven't used any electricity and was wondering why. So I think after a while if you don't use any power they check. Of course you still pay the customer fee and service fee and all that but no KW charge.

[TheProfessor]

The tank type electric heater has 2 elements.
Which should be changed on a scheduled basis.

[jbolty]

Originally Posted by TheProfessor

The tank type electric heater has 2 elements.
Which should be changed on a scheduled basis.

This is much overlooked, along with draining tank sediment. I helped a friend change his water heater a while ago and we were shocked how heavy it was. cut it open and it was 1/3 or more full of basically cement in the bottom.

[John Mercier]

Originally Posted by jbolty

Meters are locked and sealed with a lead disk which has a code pressed into to reveal tampering but in the world of today many places have smart meters that no humans read so tampering might not be discovered but I would guess for those, unplugging it would be detected by the system.

My dad worked for NH co-op for many years and caught a few meter shenanigans

The system would quickly detect no load and trigger a response as if your power had gone out.

[LikeLakes]

John, you are very knowledgeable in this area and I very much respect that. Maybe I'm wrong about some of what I'm saying, but in my opinion, defending Eversource is not a great position to be in.

The NH PUC, hardworking and trying their best to do what is right for NH residents, have been steamrolled over the years by PSNH/Eversource. Northern pass, thank goodness it was stopped at least for now, was a blatant attempt at a money grab by a public corporation, with massive spending on a PR campaign and legal wrangling.

I do understand the way a public company's finances work, including salary to upper management. It doesn't make it right for the leader to make 280 times the salary of the workers on the lower rungs.

Again in my opinion, when a company has a revenue stream that is set by the PUC in a manner that insures they can't lose money, insures they recoup all investment in infrastructure, there should be some limits to profitability at the expense of ratepayers. Don't we all wish we could run a company that can't lose money, can simply request more revenue and in nearly every case get it?

[John Mercier]

Stopping Northern Pass made you more dependent on the price of natural gas.

That would be a market line... and not a government required upgrade that could be recouped by transmission rates.

Quebec, and Eversource - since they were the only ones large enough to handle the build out of the transmission line all the way to a point in the grid that could handle that level of generation - gave you an out to at least a partial offset of the current increase in the actual cost of electricity that is based on market fundamentals. You chose no. Now you get to live with the choice you made. It was a collective choice... but one we may live to regret.
It also meant that we now have to pay more for the transmission upgrade to the Coos loop. That will allow the biomass plant in Berlin to run at full output even when other generation sources (wind/solar/smaller hydro) are seeing high output.

Everything except conservation and downsizing has offsets.
Also the arguments made by the opposition are going to have increased costs in the infrastructure going forward that will be significant. No neighborhood near an existing generator now feels that when transmission lines are to be replaced that they should be above ground in large overhead towers.
But it could go even further down... Laconia has a tower on the Eversource public launch site that runs to a tower at Opechee Point, and then to a tower on the North Main street side. What if Eversource had to place that one under the lake and charge it to all the customers... even those not next to Lake Opechee? Instances like this happen all around the State. So we could be looking at a much more costly line charge as we go forward over the next several years.

What a company pays its workers is up to a mix of the market demand/labor supply and what the investors/board are willing to forgo in return on their investment for that labor.

Whenever you invest in something, there are costs... you determine if those costs are valid in relation to your ROI.

[FlyingScot]

Originally Posted by LikeLakes

I do understand the way a public company's finances work, including salary to upper management. It doesn't make it right for the leader to make 280 times the salary of the workers on the lower rungs.

Again in my opinion, when a company has a revenue stream that is set by the PUC in a manner that insures they can't lose money, insures they recoup all investment in infrastructure, there should be some limits to profitability at the expense of ratepayers. Don't we all wish we could run a company that can't lose money, can simply request more revenue and in nearly every case get it?

Exactly. Whatever the specifics, the whole thing is so obviously corrupt to enrich a few who take virtually no risk with a guaranteed revenue stream and ROI. The head of Eversource should make a few hundred grand as a "public" employee.

[John Mercier]

Why?
My bond fund manager takes a percentage of my return and isn't subject to me considering him a ''public'' employee.

I have the option to divest... so the investors at Eversource feel that the CEO is worth what is being paid... or have the option to divest.

[LikeLakes]

Originally Posted by John Mercier

Why?
My bond fund manager takes a percentage of my return and isn't subject to me considering him a ''public'' employee.

I have the option to divest... so the investors at Eversource feel that the CEO is worth what is being paid... or have the option to divest.

Does your bond fund manager go to the SEC and say "please make sure the market conditions dictate that our investment choices for our clients can't lose?"

John, you are completely missing the point. Of course a company can choose to pay people what they want to pay them, and in the case of a public company the board/shareholders can make those choices. Of course the board/shareholders of Eversource love their CEO and want to compensate him/her for pillaging the ratepayers through bullying, high powered legal methods, lobbying, and thus virtually guaranteeing profitability.

It's not that Eversource can't choose their own path, own CEO, own compensation levels, it's that Eversource isn't John Deere Tractor, making a product and competing in the marketplace. The rules should be different for these entities IMO.

[LikeLakes]

BTW John on your comments about Northern Pass, interesting take and would enjoy discussing at some point but that subject seems to need a thread of it's own. So I decided to stick with my "Eversource sucks" comments and leave NP out of it for now. But I did note your insightful take on it.

[John Mercier]

You can't lose with a bond.

And as I stated... the CEO pay is not tied to rates.
The CEO pay is directly paid from the return that the investors would get.
The more they choose to pay the employees and management, the less they get on their return.

Same as a bond fund manager.

And the rules are different... John Deere does not need to ask permission to set the price of their product.
If they were the same... Eversource would charge so much more.

[LikeLakes]

Originally Posted by John Mercier

You can't lose with a bond.

And as I stated... the CEO pay is not tied to rates.
The CEO pay is directly paid from the return that the investors would get.
The more they choose to pay the employees and management, the less they get on their return.

Same as a bond fund manager.

And the rules are different... John Deere does not need to ask permission to set the price of their product.
If they were the same... Eversource would charge so much more.

You can absolutely lose (relatively speaking) with a bond strategy, and managers advise on strategy and quality and timing as well as simply selling the bond.

So you are saying that higher rates which pad the profitability of Eversource are not what makes the company more profitable, encouraging higher pay for their CEO? And lower rates, reducing profitability, would not suggest to the board a lower pay rate?

Respectfully, you need to not simply argue semantics at the cost of missing the concept.

[John Mercier]

No. You can't.
Once the bond is purchased it will pay the dividend for the life of the bond.

You lose with a ''trading strategy''. You pay the manager for the trading strategy. Sort of like the Eversource investors lost with the ''trading strategy'' of the Northern Pass.

They cannot get regulated returns on items that are not part of the required regulatory process.

Higher rates are due to higher rates of investment. The higher rate of investment is because they are building out new infrastructure, and replacing infrastructure that has reached its capacity limit.

The same happens at an individual level when you change the amperage in you home from a 60 to a 100, and then to a 200 or more.
You pay the panel upgrade.
It also occurs when the panel fails and needs replacement.

If I want to ''bond'' it, I can... but I just pay.

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/c...rce-energy/roi

[FlyingScot]

Originally Posted by John Mercier

No. You can't.
Once the bond is purchased it will pay the dividend for the life of the bond.

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Every bond has an expected rate of return at the time of purchase. If you buy a long term bond when inflation is expected to be 2%, and then inflation jumps to 10%, your return is destroyed and you lose--the money you get back in coupons is less than the rate of inflation. The only way to get out of this trap is to sell the bond...at a loss.

But staying on topic--it's one thing to argue for the free market to set compensation in a competitive situation, but it's silly to assert free market capitalism is fair/appropriate when we're talking about a government controlled entity.

[ITD]

There are bonds and there are bonds. You can lose your shirt buying the wrong bonds.


Government policy has a huge effect on fossil fuel and electricity prices. It's not a free market. We have an administration that has consistently said they want to limit and eliminate fossil fuel usage. We are seeing the fruits of those policies and efforts.

When people send money to green causes, this is what those causes want to happen. The slogan is always "alternative energy", but "alternative energy" is not even remotely ready to assume the load.

The result of these drastic energy price increases is going to be people without means being very cold, or dead this winter. And the problems these strategies are supposed to improve won't budge.

[TheProfessor]

Originally Posted by ITD

We have an administration that has consistently said they want to limit and eliminate fossil fuel usage. We are seeing the fruits of those policies and efforts.

Wow. What a stretch.

" Combined, the oil and gas industry holds leases to more than 25 million acres of publicly-owned minerals, roughly half of which sit unused. Companies now hold more than 9,000 approved, but unused, drilling permits on national public lands, all of which could be put to use today." LINK

It is all greedy oil companies and greedy stockholders that cause the current issue.

Never mind the shutdowns caused by Covid-19 and a disastrous response by the previous administration.

[Sue Doe-Nym]

It’s generally unwise to argue with the professor, but I must point out that when we were energy independent during the last administration, we were not faced with exorbitant energy prices. Now perhaps that’s a coincidence, but I think not. We need to revert back to what was working for all of us.

[thinkxingu]

Originally Posted by Sue Doe-Nym

It’s generally unwise to argue with the professor, but I must point out that when we were energy independent during the last administration, we were not faced with exorbitant energy prices. Now perhaps that’s a coincidence, but I think not. We need to revert back to what was working for all of us.

Ummm...you know, like, Covid happened and totally changed the landscape of production, travel, etc. and that there's, like, a war in Ukraine involving one of the biggest oil-producing countries in the world, right?

Like, for real?

Plane tickets were also $27 when Trump was president—didja think that was gonna stay the norm?!

Sent from my SM-G990U1 using Tapatalk

[Sue Doe-Nym]

I repeat…..ENERGY INDEPENDENCE, once reversed, played a huge part in this mess! That is all I have to say on the subject….period.

[John Mercier]

Originally Posted by ITD

There are bonds and there are bonds. You can lose your shirt buying the wrong bonds.


Government policy has a huge effect on fossil fuel and electricity prices. It's not a free market. We have an administration that has consistently said they want to limit and eliminate fossil fuel usage. We are seeing the fruits of those policies and efforts.

When people send money to green causes, this is what those causes want to happen. The slogan is always "alternative energy", but "alternative energy" is not even remotely ready to assume the load.

The result of these drastic energy price increases is going to be people without means being very cold, or dead this winter. And the problems these strategies are supposed to improve won't budge.

We had 13M b/d of refining capacity in 2016. We had 12M b/d of refining capacity in 2020. The policy to expand without limits LNG sales offshore was enacted in 2018 - that is what effects the cost of generating electricity from fossil fuels. Biden was in his basement during that period. So what Administration are you talking about?

[John Mercier]

Originally Posted by FlyingScot

Every bond has an expected rate of return at the time of purchase. If you buy a long term bond when inflation is expected to be 2%, and then inflation jumps to 10%, your return is destroyed and you lose--the money you get back in coupons is less than the rate of inflation. The only way to get out of this trap is to sell the bond...at a loss.

But staying on topic--it's one thing to argue for the free market to set compensation in a competitive situation, but it's silly to assert free market capitalism is fair/appropriate when we're talking about a government controlled entity.

Actually in an I-bond, that doesn't happen.

Since the investors are free to divest, the mechanism still works on compensation. After all, it is their ROI that is reduced with each dollar spent on operations... including compensation at any level.

The ''hatred'' of Eversource is a projection of the individual. They have the option of going off grid, but are trapped with the desire for electricity at the lowest possible cost.

They even complain about the programs designed to lower usage so that the infrastructure would not need to be expanded.
The UL printed a study on how PV generation, because it was lower power distributed over a larger area of the grid created less need for infrastructure upgrade. The Facebook comments really didn't seem to understand that if you demand more centralized generation the requirement would soon be an upgrade of the entire transmission line from the generating station to the end user. They think you just put more and more homes on the end of the branch line and that line never needs an upgrade.

Massachusetts even adopted Mass Saves to manage the usage so their infrastructure wouldn't need as much upgrade.

Sooner, more likely than later, they are going to need to seek out new generation... and other than small localized solar/etc sourcing... it will mean a new very large primary line upgrade. We just keep building farther and farther away from generation with higher and higher load factors.
That isn't going to be a freebie.
The chart I posted a link to shows the amount after depreciation of Eversource investment into the grid, and the rate of return before expenses. The rate fluctuates with the various depreciation and price sets... but is relative to bond levels. It is the investment that is skyrocketing as the grid ages out, and the demand for electricity in regions that previously had less demand are developed.