Friends and members,
TVA is inviting the public to comment on a new proposal that would raise your energy bill. That's why we're asking you to email TVA today and tell them...
#HandsOffMyBill
Over the last several months, we've seen an explosion of mandatory fixed fees all across the Tennessee Valley. These fixed fees raise rates on regular people and hurt the economics of investing in energy efficiency and solar generation. We've already fought against fixed fees (and won!) in Huntsville. Now, TVA wants to drive up your bill with another misguided idea from the same flawed school of thought.
It's called a Grid Access Charge. And it's completely unfair to regular folks like you and me.
The basic idea with a Grid Access Charge is that you pay a fixed amount of money for access to the grid, no matter how much or how little you use. Under the terms of TVA's proposal, TVA wouldn't be charging this fee to you directly. They would be charging your local utility companies instead, but that's almost beside the point. If Grid Access Charges are implemented, it would only be a question of when, not if, local utilities pass the cost on to YOU.
The fact is, any fixed charges (like, say, Grid Access Charges) hurt low-income and low-energy users.
We know this from reading TVA's own words.
Read this passage from the executive summary of TVA's 2018 Wholesale Rate Change Draft Environmental Assessment. (Note that Alternative C is the Alternative TVA wants to adopt.)
"Under Alternative C and D, for instance, high-usage households would likely see a decrease of more than 1.5 percent in their average monthly bills while low-usage households would likely see a small increase in their average monthly bills. Low-usage households' monthly bills would increase more than other households as a proportion of household income."
Translation: Users that consume HUGE amounts of energy will pay the exact same Grid Access Charge as those who use the least. Regular folks with regular energy consumption levels will pay more per capita than those who use the most energy. That's totally unfair.
Here's what you can do about it.
TVA has invited the public to submit comments on its proposed rate hikes. If enough of us tell TVA that Grid Access Charges are unjust, we may just convince them to scrap this misguided idea. We've done it before with Huntsville Utilities. Now let's do it again.
Submit your comments by sending an email to Mshidgdon@tva.gov today! Tell her that TVA's fixed fees are unfair to regular, hardworking people. Tell them that everyone should pay their fair share based on how much they use. Tell them...
#HandsOffMyBill
-Daniel
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