What is more fun that sitting inside your house when it is zero degrees outside? Sitting inside your house when it is zero degrees outside with no electricity.
With alarming regularity, thousands and thousands of WNC residents are losing power as the Duke grid experiences high demand because of cold weather. Twice in January so far.
Who should be all over Duke about this problem? Local politicians, Gov. Pat McCrory and the N.C. Utilities Commission. What have they done? Nothing.
When you have a Utilities Commission that caters to the every whim of the company it is supposed to regulate and sells out the very citizens it is supposed to protect, those companies become emboldened to favor their investors with dividends rather than serving their customers by maintaining and upgrading their infrastructure.
What the heck … let’s take another rate increase while Duke tells us to lower our energy usage, our thermostats and bundle up while we sit around in our cold, dark homes.
Maybe it’s time for some local residents, politicians, and bend over bureaucrats to expend a little “energy” to warm some feet up in Raleigh?
Can you see the light?
— William Jell
Asheville
Mission Statement of the North Carolina Utilities Commission
The Commission is responsible to both the public and utilities and, by law (G. S. 62-2), must regulate in a manner designed to implement the policy of the State of North Carolina to:
Provide fair regulation of public utilities in the interest of the public.
Promote the inherent advantage of regulated public utilities.
Promote adequate, reliable, and economical utility service.
Promote least cost energy planning.
Provide just and reasonable rates and charges for public utility services and promote conservation of energy.
Assure that facilities necessary to meet future growth can be financed on reasonable and fair terms.
Encourage and promote harmony between utility companies and their customers.
Foster planned growth of public utility services.
Coordinate energy supply facilities with the state’s development.
Cooperate with other states and the federal government in providing interstate and intrastate public utility service and reliability of energy supply.
Facilitate the construction of facilities in and the extension of natural gas service to unserved areas.