Most people don’t understand the electric cooperative business structure. PowerSouth is a generation and transmission cooperative. We generate or purchase electric power and deliver it to our distribution members to be sold to retail customers like you. PowerSouth is completely a wholesale business – we do not sell to individuals or the public. Our only customers are the retail electric distribution systems that own us.
We are insulated from dealing with the public. That makes our business much easier than other utilities, including our distribution members, that deal with the public and the issues that come with those relationships. You may not think very much about people who have trouble paying their electric bills each month or who are almost always in the process of being disconnected, re-connected or asking for relief on their bill, but every electric utility has those customers and must deal with those problems every day.
Those problems are not easy to handle. It is difficult for me to comprehend the anguish a customer service representative deals with in responding to pleas not to disconnect electric service because there are sick people, senior citizens or young children in the house who cannot do without heat or air conditioning. I doubt you have to deal with such disturbing issues every day.
I try to visit each of our distribution members’ board meetings each year. After a meeting with one of our members last month, a few of us were discussing electric cost issues and the problems some people have paying their monthly electric bills.
The cleaning crew started cleaning while we were talking, and one of the ladies excused herself for interrupting and addressed the group. She stated she was on disability and had custody of her grandchildren. She said she received just over $400 per month in disability payments. She said she was forced to take the part-time cleaning job to pay her electric bill and other necessary expenses for her grandchildren.
She said Habitat for Humanity had added insulation to her house, installed new energy-efficient windows and doors, and provided a new heat pump within the last two years. However, her power bill was always around $275 per month and had not decreased very much with her home improvements. She also mentioned that she did not move her thermostat from 73 degrees because she thought moving it would add to her electric bill. We advised her to turn up her thermostat to 78 during the summer and drop it to 68 during the winter to conserve electricity.
She responded that she would change her thermostat and then asked the question we all knew was coming – what was she to do about her electric bill? That is the question for many people in our communities today. The answer is not easy, if there is an answer at all.
Electricity is like a Mercedes. If you want it, you have to pay the bill. Otherwise, who will pay? Electric cooperatives only charge their costs plus a small margin to cover future contingencies, so there is no one to subsidize an unpaid bill other than the other electric customers. There are obviously a finite number of delinquent bills a customer base can carry without putting other customers in jeopardy.
The answer becomes more difficult when you consider that if people can’t pay their electric bills, they get no electricity. If electricity is no longer affordable for people in our great society, what do we do about those who can’t afford it? Do we turn a cold shoulder to their basic needs? These are very difficult questions.
