12 Responses to “Ask Us: What Are The New Solar Programs From Gulf Power?”

1. Concerned parent on February 2nd, 2011 12:00 am

   Just to update, Jeff Rogers has called me several times, asking me if Lynn something or other has called me and given me the info I requested. NO, she has not. He told me that she said she had left the message on my machine, but that’s funny since it doesn’t show up on my caller id nor is there such a message. Oh well. I’ll try again tomorrow.

2. EMD on January 31st, 2011 7:35 pm

   I have always loved the people at EREC. Do not like hearing them bad-mouthed.

3. David Huie Green on January 31st, 2011 5:28 pm

   shame on them for not paying people to stop being customers, whodathunk

4. Alfred on January 31st, 2011 4:56 pm

   GP is also not telling us that the rebates only apply to the cost of converting a small percentage of your GP usage.
   GP is not going to pay you to go off grid and no longer be a GP customer.

5. William on January 30th, 2011 10:11 pm

   >>>EREC needs to do something! Their rates are outrageous, They buy their power from Gulf Power so if GP lowers their rates so should EREC.

   EREC does *not* purchase their electricity from Gulf Power. It is from PowerSouth, which is essentially a cooperative of power company cooperatives.

6. David Huie Green on January 30th, 2011 9:53 pm

   Did they charge a low minimum fee?

   It’s always a balancing act of how to allot the expenses of maintaining the system.

   Back before I got voted off of Central Water Works, Inc. (member owned system), we tried to get about half our monthly income from base fees and half from water usage above a certain minimum allowable. Or at least it worked out about that way.

   Of course, we also gave reduced rates for high usage, figuring they had already paid their share of expenses.

   The federal government wanted to reverse the practice, charge more per thousand gallons as the number of thousands of gallons went up. That was to discourage wanton waste of water.

   That way, if you have a bad leak and don’t find it for a couple of months, you pay a tremendous bill for something which costs a few pennies per thousand gallons to pump and a bit more to treat and quite a bit more to have the system to deliver it to your leak.

   Of course, also, Houston doesn’t answer to the Florida Public Service Commission so there’s no telling how they figure things or if it applies to what Gulf Power does.

   David considering fairness

7. sara on January 30th, 2011 9:30 pm

   EREC needs to do something! Their rates are outrageous, They buy their power from Gulf Power so if GP lowers their rates so should EREC.

8. nudo on January 30th, 2011 7:12 pm

   When I lived in Houston you had a minimal kW you had to use a month or your price per kw went up. People where big into conserving and that was there way to make sure you didn’t really save any money for conserving. That’s my whole point, they want you to conserve and use other means but you will still pay about the same price.

9. David Huie Green on January 30th, 2011 5:19 pm

   REGARDING:
   “But what [they're] not telling you is that actually it would benefit the power company more than the public. Do you think they want to lose money by reducing how many kW that we all are consuming? ”

   Do they want to lose money? My guess would be NO.

   Do they expect to benefit from it? My guess would be YES.

   Would having less sales always mean loss of profits? Not necessarily.

   The power company has to maintain enough capacity to meet peak demand. In some cases that means hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of expenditures to meet peak demand of two months out of twelve.

   If they can chop off the peak while maintaining the base load, they can be more profitable. I was told of a similar case in Alabama around Lake Martin (wherever that is). A bunch of folks had places on the lake which they used a month or two every summer. That meant nearly no income through most of the year, heavy demand during the summer, much money required for generating capacity to meet the peak demand.

   Most of the peak demand was from air conditioning, so Alabama Power offered to supply heat exchangers which would circulate the cool water from the bottom of the lake to cool the homes. Their power demand and costs would be low and their homes cool.

   Both benefit. There’s no reason for businesses to not prosper. In fact that is why they were formed in the first place.

   David for profitable businesses
   through energy conservation
   and alternatives

10. Concerned parent on January 30th, 2011 2:30 pm

    I had this much info from Jeff’s post to the article about it. I called the number he gave and they didn’t know what I was talking about. They did give me Jeff’s direct number, which I called, and he said he really didn’t know much about it beyond what is stated above. He told me he was going to contact the marketing dept who would be handling it and would know much more about it and that either he or they would call me before the end of the day to give me the details. I have heard nothing since.

11. nudo on January 30th, 2011 11:34 am

    Sounds great, good for everyone. But what there not telling you is that actually it would benefit the power company more than the public. Do you think they want to lose money by reducing how many kW that we all are consuming? They will raise the rates to make up for it. Using less cost them less overhead and they still get there money. I’m sure there’s even room for a few layoffs if enough solar panels where in use.

12. WORRIED RESIDENT on January 30th, 2011 2:58 am

    Is EREC talking about doing this?