Questions off-peak assertions

To the editor:

My name is Jim McPherson. I’ve lived in the Valley for almost 41 years. I work away from home most of time and have missed most of the debate going on over MEA’s intent to end the off-peak incentive program, but have just read the article by Greg Johnson headlined “Customers speak out against petition to end off-peak power program.”

I have been involved in the program since late 1996 and would like to respond and ask a few questions of my own. No. 1, MEA’s management claims they have no idea why the program was started in the first place. I find this disingenuous to say the least. Even since before this program began, there was an ever-increasing demand for power generation throughout the state of Alaska. Unless you have had your head in the sand, you will know that generating facilities in this area feed power into the grid for areas north and south, especially when other facilities are having maintenance outages.

At times, those other areas can purchase power from the grid cheaper than they can produce it. The idea for off-peak incentives was to minimize the demand at peak requirement times and thus easing the generating load. These systems are shut off during the peak loading times and operate on their stored reserves. This not only conserves energy (the whole point) but is conservative ecologically, too. Less generation = less pollution.

My heating system does not use fossil fuels here at home. There are no hydrocarbons involved. No pollution. It’s more ecologically friendly. This seemed to be of major concern for many when the talk of a new coal-fired power plant was going on earlier. This point seems to have become important lately, too, with the concern over having enough gas reserves for power generation in the new future. Easing peak loads may help avoid rolling brownouts or blackouts in the future. I would submit that that 91 cents a year other ratepayers spend to subsidize the off-peak program may be well spent if generation becomes a problem.

My questions are related to some of the statements made by Cheryll Heinze. MEA’s website confirms Heinze’s figure of an average of 800 kilowatts per household per month of consumption. However, isn’t that for total consumption, not just the heating system consumption? Therefore, aren’t her figures for the difference in costs deliberately misleading? Might not this call all of her figures into question? MEA was the one pushing these “conservation” programs at the outset. Many of us were trying to be more responsible in designing our heating systems with the encouragement of MEA.

Now, as is typical of the “talking heads” that change at the top, they want to just pull the rug out from under those who were trying to be responsible. MEA did this in the past when it encouraged everyone to go totally electric in the 1970s. I believe MEA could use some consumer advocates on the board in addition to those with political aspirations.

James W. McPherson

Palmer