A topic that has recently come up is the upcoming increases in electricity pricing here in the state. There are things going on with energy generation in the state that are making me, personally, stop and wonder who has lost their mind. My view on energy generation is that we need to be producing energy every way we reasonably can when it makes economic sense to do so. I've also had the chance to learn, from power companies, about some of the challenges in adding smaller generation projects to the existing grid. And yes. There are "Challenges." But it can all be done, in a great many ways.
In another corner of the world, a somewhat noted science mind, Hank Green, was sharing about one of the states he is connected with and their upcoming, very large electric rate increases. And he went into detail about how those rate increases are made possible, and how the Public Service Commission approves the increases to the state in question. It is a somewhat set rate of return based upon the amount of money spent by the power company in infrastructure investments. But to keep things from just going up out of control, it is overseen by a group of people, who are the Public Service Commission. They are in charge of rate increases.
I think it's important to share this, because as our power bills continue to go up, there is a lot of weird stuff going on with the infrastructure investments. Maybe I need to restate that, as I'm using my personal judgement on this, so I'm looking at this with a very large and personal bias. But in the last number of years, the infrastructure and new generation is being done in ways that are far more expensive, not just to build, but also in cost to creating the electricity, per kilowatt hour. And existing generation, backbone power providing generation, at much more reasonable costs, are being neglected or ignored.
The trend for power consumption just keeps going up, especially with more and more portable devices and other things that need to charge on the power grid. There is just more and more load being added, regularly. So, there is a great need for more generation to be had, and more infrastructure to be had. But I think that it's also important to know how this all works and is handled. I hope I've been able to share this properly. I just want to be sure that more of us know how this works.