Your endorsement of Apple Valley Choice Energy (AVCE) calls it a clear choice (The Choice seems clear in Apple Valley,
Daily Press, March 12, 2017). This is only the case if you ignore several factors.
Here are a couple that come to mind.
There is no way to lower costs in any process by inserting a middleman who gets paid for doing nothing. That’s exactly what will happen in Apple Valley, because the town is not creating any new electricity, not delivering the electricity, not maintaining the system, and not even doing the billing. Yet it will be collecting money for this. If this were actually a viable business model, everyone could do it and become filthy rich.
Also, so-called clean energy is more expensive than electricity from fossil fuel sources. There is no way to replace inexpensive fossil-fuel-generated electricity with expensive clean
energy and save money. Someone has to subsidize the difference.
The town also implies that it will be buying electricity at a lower cost than Southern California Edison. Yeah, right.
Finally, if the Town of Apple Valley is short-stopping money that used to go to Edison, that will lower Edison’s income, and thus their profits. If they don’t make their expected profits, won’t they just go to the CPUC and get a rate increase to make up the difference? If so, ratepayers will be paying at least as much as before. So much for the promised savings.
In typical Town Hall fashion, this is called a choice even though they automatically sign you up … kinda like Obamacare. What seems clear is that if this were really a good thing, people would flock to it on their own.
The only thing clear about this is that we’re not getting all the facts.
Published: Daily Press