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Louisiana Customers who save on electric bills could be forced to pay utility company for lost profits (lailluminator.com)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 4 months ago (2 children)

To a limited extent I can understand charging folks something. On the offhand chance you need to use the grid for power (or heck, to put power into it.), the grid needs to be functional, which takes repairs and maintenance, which takes money. That said, forcing to pay for lost profits is ridiculous.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Yup.

However, let me suggest a radical idea:

Any service that has infrastructure requirements like this, such that there's a mandatory "base fee" under the usage fee, should be nationalized, and the base fee paid be taxes. Every, and any, service. Water. Sewage. Electricity. Internet. Roads. Any basic need provided, that requires infrastructure that would incur a monthly maintenance fee. De-privatize it.

This would be my litmus law for nationalizing services.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Natural monopoly is the term you're looking for I believe, though I think you're going a smidge further then the definition.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago

Works for me.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 months ago

I'd be more amenable to fees if the companies were actually forced to maintain their infrastructure and if the government wasn't already giving them all big handouts. That comment about nationalizing all of them makes a bunch of sense to me.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 4 months ago

We live in a corporatocracy.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 months ago

Ah, Louisiana, first you charge people $800 energy bills then you complain that you can't make it more efficient. Capitalism is doing great.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago

Too many utilities are incorrectly billing fixed distribution costs on their per-kilowatt hour rate. Where I live, distribution is just over half the cost of electricity, but it is still mostly billed per kilowatt hour, when really those costs are nearly completely fixed.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

Sounds about right for Louisiana.

[–] threelonmusketeers 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Double repost:

https://futurology.today/post/2001065

https://futurology.today/post/2009533

Not sure why this one has more comments than the previous ones.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

We had a technical issue that impacted the federation with other instances. It's resolved now so there's more visibility.

[–] threelonmusketeers 2 points 4 months ago

Ah, that would explain it. Thanks!