Once again, we encourage the Mississippi Public Service Commission to do its job: assure reliable affordable electricity for Mississippi customers. It’s supposed to make Entergy Mississippi and Mississippi Power do this. It regulates these legal monopolies which have no competitors to offer customers better alternatives.
But the MPSC listens to the utilities and to the Public Utilities Staff which “balances” the interests of customers and utilities. No one speaks just for customers. They get the short end of the stick when the MPSC allows utility experiments that benefit shareholders if they work – but harm customers when they don’t work. Or they cost more. Mississippi Power’s Kemper County Lignite Plant is an example.
It took six years and $7 billion for Mississippi Power and the MPSC to admit Kemper’s experimental gasifier wouldn’t work. Customers paid $800 million for its turbines to run on natural gas – not syngas from the gasifier. Company shareholders paid $6.2 billion for the failure. Customers were lucky. They could have paid more if the gasifier had run just one day.
It was obvious years earlier that Kemper was a failure. But the MPSC didn’t pull the plug. It was complicit. It had determined a “need” for more capacity that allowed the experiment even though the company said it would cost $1.6 billion – or about twice the cost of a conventional gas fired plant.
That need seems to have disappeared. Mississippi Power is now reducing capacity.
Why are we rehashing this? Because it looks like the MPSC may do it again. The latest utility experiment is Entergy Mississippi’s $1 billion for green energy: solar and wind plants to generate electricity. Does it “need” more capacity?
There is little demand growth in Entergy Mississippi’s monopoly service area. Its grid is stable, and its system capacity of 5 GW is more than adequate for current and projected demand. It has interchanges with other grids for emergencies. Its demand vs. capacity is about like Mississippi Power’s was when the MPSC said Kemper was “needed”.
Some of Entergy’s plants are old. They could be replaced with newer more efficient plants. But there are no plans to replace the Grand Gulf nuclear plant at Port Gibson. It is the oldest and most expensive plant in Entergy’s system.
Why solar and wind if more capacity is “needed”? Their power is intermittent. It’s not available all the time. Therefore, there must be backup power from natural gas or coal or nuclear to keep the grid stable and the lights on. So, if the MPSC lets Entergy build a solar plant, it must build a backup plant too. It gets to build two plants.
And building plants is how its shareholders make money. They get a guaranteed return (about 10%) on their cost. Customers pay for it. Two plants cost more than one. Shareholders get a twofer. Customers pay twice.
Are Entergy and the MPSC virtue signaling with solar and wind? Their familiar mantra is they are green and clean. No carbon emissions from operation. (Never mind emissions from backup plants. And from the manufacture and disposal of solar panels and windmills.)
Virtue signaling conflicts with reality. The Germans now know this. They bet heavily on windmills and abandoned natural gas, coal, and nuclear. But windmills don’t work when it’s cold and their power is needed most. So, Germans are pivoting back to natural gas, coal, and nuclear. Freezing discourages virtue signaling. So do blackouts.
So do threats to safety and well-being. Here, dependence on imported oil threatens national security, and high energy prices drive harmful inflation. Both result from government policies that reduce U.S. oil and gas production – and make Russian oil more valuable. Are virtue signalers unwitting agents of Russian disinformation attacks on U.S. oil and gas companies? Congress says it will investigate. So, not to worry.
Entergy Mississippi gets about 13% of its electricity from Grand Gulf when it runs. It’s owned by Systems Energy Resources which is owned by Entergy Corp which is owned by stockholders. It was commissioned in 1985 and took 15 years to build due to changing federal regulations and other problems. It cost $5 billion in today’s dollars vs. original estimate of less than $1billion. Its electricity was about four times market price when it came online. No one wanted to buy it.
But someone had to buy it to pay for the plant. Someone other than stockholders. That’s how monopolies work. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission stepped up. Why FERC and not the MPSC since the plant is in Mississippi? FERC regulates Grand Gulf under federal law.
Grand Gulf’s cost and output were more than any Entergy Corp subsidiary alone could handle. So, FERC spread the pain over all its subs: Louisiana (14%), New Orleans (17%), Arkansas (36%) and Mississippi (33%).
Actually, FERC spread the pain over all of Entergy’s customers. The MPSC objected. But the U.S. Supreme Court said FERC had jurisdiction, and that the MPSC and other regulators must seek relief there. They are still trying.
Retail regulators for Louisiana and Arkansas public service commissions and for New Orleans now seek over $1 billion in relief. They say mismanagement, imprudent operation, and changes in contractual agreements have made the pain worse. They want to disallow imprudent costs and have more say in management decisions.
Where is the MPSC in this? It belatedly supports the retail regulators, questions the prudence of System Energy’s operation of Grand Gulf, and opposes Entergy’s request to dismiss the regulators’ complaints before FERC.
Interestingly, comments by Mississippi’s Governor seem to favor the status quo because Grand Gulf creates jobs and pays local taxes. Actually, customers do. They can’t catch a break.
There’s probably no way to even the odds for customers. But it would help if they had a Consumer Advocate with standing and resources to question utility experiments. It might make the MPSC fairer. It seems to help in 43 other states.
This post is authored and sponsored by Bigger Pie Forum.
21 comments:
solar, wind, and electric vehicles are all boondoggles
Green energy reduces the need for new expensive power plants. Green energy is renewable. Green energy works better than Gran Gulf, is clean and is cheap. No wonder the fossil apologist hand-wringers want to kill it. People wake up. The utilities and the fossil energy corporations are ripping you off and killing our planet. Fight back with clean, green energy. Tell them to go to Russia.
The lack of customer-focused representation at the PSC has clearly been recognized. That's why, if one sets about to pay attention, one can see where individual political subdivisions have hired attorneys to represent them in PSC matters. Newton County went after Mississippi Power at the PSC recently. Other counties and cities have lawyers conducting serious discovery and records requests, seeking to shed light on issues that the over-burdened Utilities Staff either cannot or will not address. There is a movement out there to create accountability to rate payers on the part of regulated monopolies. The days of hiding rate hikes without adequate disclosure and public participation are over.
@8:40
If "green energy" could be generated from horse manure you could provide power for a small town by yourself.
Government , Entergy etal HAVE NO INTENTION of making things better for anyone under 150,000 two income family household. Level billing is about it folks. These comfortable shells we hide in .....
Have always found it amusing that the press (not KF) somehow believes and assumes that all the PSC staffers are angels, unassailable and always, ALWAYS, looking out for the best interests of Mississippians.
Double Shad White's staff and payroll with specific directions to go after the entrenched bureaucratic staffers. Staffers don't have to directly accept monies and/or gratuities to be effectively on the take.
I immediately disregard anyone who uses the made up phrase “fossil fuel” because the hydrocarbons we use to distill fuels are not created by dead dinosaurs, because the same hydrocarbons are found on other planets in our star system. They are a renewable mineral resource created deep within the planet by a natural process not yet fully understood. It doesn’t take millions of years. More like a few decades. And the process will continue as long as our planet’s core is active and the sun generates plasma and solar wind.
Nickel and Lithium are in much shorter supply than crude oil. And they are necessary to make the batteries for electric vehicles and to store solar and wind generated power.
What Does the Mississippi Energy Institute actually DO anyway? I expect just dole out big fat pay checks like the socialist rural monopolies across the State. I get sick of Cooperative Energy funding so many junkets and conferences constantly with MY MONEY.
Green Machine
Define "green energy"
ONE EV does more harm to the
environment that several 18wheelers.
Ever thought to ask the fake
Carbon scam "scientists" what happens
when CO2 is limited, what happens
to crop production?
The real scientists know, but since they
refuse to go along with the agenda, they are censored.
You climate scam freaks are the ones who need to wake up...to reality.
Hey Entergy employee at 9:38, are you okay with your employer setting up a Mississippi corporation and transferring all of the system liability exposure to the new corporation but refusing to transfer all of the credit assets that should have also been transferred to the Mississippi corporation? Are you okay with your employer intentionally making its new Mississippi entity look worse financially than it should have been for the sole purpose of paying shareholders big dividends? Your employer prefers to pay dividends to shareholders on the backs of its rate payers.
11:19 : Shareholders and many local elected officials both Dem and Rep. We cannot leave out the elected grifters.
@11:19 AM
If you don’t like it then nobody is stopping you from enjoying the free, state owned electricity in North Korea, commie-boy!
@11:19
So now Entergy employees are the only ones who think becoming completely dependent on "green energy" is political garbage that can't be feasibly accomplished ? Who knew ?
Wind turbines and solar panels have been around for years now. If they're "all that" why haven't they already become much more a part of the power grid than they are ?
Entergy is angelic compared to the criminal rural electric power associations.
Talk about a license to steal. $300,000 donations to Simpson Academy and financing for the Polk's meat plant instead of rebates to customers or lower rates. Nothing will happen though, as they own your elected officials.
I recently saw a solar array field that was yuuuugh. Only generated enough power for about 8,000 homes. Solar and windmill power may have a niche in certain places, but is no answer to supply us with energy. Natural gas is a cost effective and relatively green energy. America has reduced our CO2 due to changing energy production from coal and oil to NG.
Entergy refuses to allow the Belhaven security group use their light poles to mount cameras to catch the carjackers.
Why, Entergy?
Folks keep talk about passing it on to their grandchildren . If you don’t get on the Green wagon there won’t be nothing to pass on. What was previously taught to be stable ice in the Antarctic just sunk into the sea. It was the size of New York.
My suspicion is that there is another motivator for the wind and solar. When we look at recent business developement projects, Amazon is almost always in the news. The latest is the new distribution center in Canton. Amazon has always boasted about their data center sites being clean energy powered. If the state or developer groups are vying for more of Amazon's business beyond warehouse space, the next logical progression would be a data center. There is a geographical gap for Amazon in our area and the abundance of fiber, courtesy of Cspire, would definitely be a draw for Amazon. Also, while we may complain about electrical rates, we are relatively cheap in comparison to other locales.
Currently Grand Gulfs issue is reliability. Largest unit in the USA, many upgrades which will last for many years. Why long outages and unexpected downtime do not know, no longer in the nuclear loop. Entergy needs held accountable to run the unit at full capacity base load refuel to refuel
"Entergy refuses to allow the Belhaven security group use their light poles to mount cameras to catch the carjackers. Why, Entergy?"
Why should they? Entergy and BellSouth also refuse to allow political campaigns to tack literature to their poles. And doing so is illegal. You might say "Oh, but catching carjackers is more important than political campaigns". Who says so?
You don't know by looking at (what we call) telephone poles, who actually owns them and who is renting per pole, throughout the community and countryside. Cable companies, power companies, phone companies, etc.
No (utility) owner of these poles should feel obligated to rent pole-use to neighborhood associations, community groups, schools, churches, municipalities or lemonade stands. Or Kenneth Stokes. Imagine a member of The Geek Squad or Luther's Cable Routing and Squirrel Riddance, LLC propping a ladder 27 feet high on a utility pole with zero training in safety requirements.
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