RICHMOND
--A Senate committee has killed Sen. Richard Stuart's bill to limit the profits power companies can make on energy conservation measures.Stuart had submitted the bill to make a change to a law passed last year. Last year's law said utility companies should urge customers to save energy; in exchange, the utility could earn back the money spent on the program urging conservation, plus a profit, plus lost profits for what the company would lose if customers used less energy.
Stuart was appalled at the idea of consumers paying for energy they don't use, and submitted his bill to eliminate that portion of last year's law.
"They get to recover the money that they spend to tell us to save electricity. They get to put a profit margin on top of that. And then they get to recover their lost profits," Stuart told the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee.
"There's nobody here representing the rate payer, so I'm taking that on, because I do not want to go back to my district and tell people we're paying the utilities more money not to produce electricity than we pay them to produce it."
Northrop Grumman and the AARP supported Stuart's legislation.
The bill, however, was opposed by an unlikely coalition of environmental activists--who backed last year's bill because it gave big power companies like Dominion an incentive to encourage conservation--and power companies.
Dominion Power spokesman Bob Blue said his company needs the provision allowing them to recover lost profits because they've made investments in power plants and need to be able to ensure they make that money back.
"We have investments in power plants. We've built power plants. If our customers are using less electricity, this ensures we're able to recover [that investment]," Blue said.
He said Dominion is in the middle of filing for a rate increase for energy conservation programs, which the company estimates would save customers more than $1 billion over 15 years because the company will spend less on fuel and on new power plants.
Blue said in the short term, customers would see a monthly bill of about $100 go up 90 cents.
Stuart said an SCC study showed rates could rise $40 a month in the next few years. Blue argued that that study didn't take into account any cost-offsetting measures, such as less pressure to build new facilities.
Blue and other opponents of Stuart's bill argued that the original law from last year requires the SCC to determine if conservation programs are in the public interest before allowing companies to use them and to make money off them.
In the end, the committee voted to kill Stuart's bill, which Stuart called "very disappointing.
"I'm not surprised," he added. "Dominion Power is the 800-pound gorilla in Richmond and they get everything they want."
He said he doesn't think rate-payers understand the issue, and he hopes to raise awareness and perhaps bring his bill back next year.
Chelyen Davis
Email: cdavis@freelancestar.com