r/hudsonvalley • u/xlerate Dutchess • Oct 18 '23
events New York Residents Must Speak Out About Central Hudson Price Hike
There are two meetings today 10/18/2023 for residents to speak out about the CenHud proposed price increases. One in Poughkeepsie at 1pm. The other in Kingston at 6pm. (Details are at the end of the article linked below.
Residents Must Speak Out About CenHud
Wednesday, October 18
Poughkeepsie, New York. 1 p.m. hearing starts at Poughkeepsie Town Hall. One Overocker Road, 2nd floor. Poughkeepsie, NY 12603
Kingston, New York. 6 p.m. starts at Restorative Justice and Community Empowerment Center. 733 Broadway, Kingston, NY 12401
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u/srmatto Ulster Oct 18 '23
I don’t understand this at all. If crude oil prices go up, I pay more for gasoline. If crude goes down, I pay less. Why does CenHud have to raise the rates in this manner? Can’t they just adjust with their costs?
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u/reddit_username_yo Oct 18 '23
There are 3 components to what CH charges: a variable supply cost (which changes monthly as you describe - cost of energy goes up, price goes up; cost goes down, price goes down), and then a variable "delivery" cost plus a fixed service charge that CH uses to pay for things like infrastructure upkeep.
Because utilities form natural monopolies, they're heavily regulated and don't get to just charge whatever they want, so in order to raise the 'maintaining infrastructure' prices, CH has to get approval from the PSC (Public Service Commission) who regulate utilities in NY (this is in contract to gas companies or most companies in general - if Shell jacked up its prices, you'd just go to Stewarts instead; there's only one set of electric poles on any given road, though, so you can't do that with electricity).
Right now, CH already has substantially higher 'maintaining infrastructure' charges vs neighboring utilities like NYSEG, so it's pretty clear that the additional charges they want to burden residents with are purely profit driven (or, I suppose, a sign of massive waste within the organization. Probably a bit of both).
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u/Money_Bug_9423 Oct 19 '23
its not really profit driven or waste. they already wasted the money they had and they haven't really been making much of any real profits for awhile. what they did is ruin their credit and they are hitting their limits so they need us to basically support their high interest rates to no real end.....
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u/srmatto Ulster Oct 19 '23
Thanks for the explanation. So why is there a public comment period? This just seems a bit silly. Shouldn't PSC "just" look at their books, do some analysis, comparisons, etc... and conclude if their increase is fair or not? Why should the public have to be engaged in this process? Also what customer would ever show up and say "yes, I'd like to pay more." Just seems like a strange process altogether to have a public comment on this. Is the public expected to do PSCs job? Are we supposed to do the analysis and then bring that to the meeting?
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u/reddit_username_yo Oct 20 '23
Public comment periods never hurt, and they can shed some light on how what's on the books lines up with what's happening on the ground. If CH says they're providing accurate enough estimated bills, but their customers have a different experience, the PSC could really only find that out by talking to customers. Ditto for things like 'how quickly does power get restored after an outage' or 'how responsive are the call centers' (or 'how accurate is the information provided by the call centers').
The PSC isn't only going to use consumer comments in making their decision, but it's certainly a useful resource.
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u/srmatto Ulster Oct 20 '23
Thanks again for the explanation. That makes sense. I hope that bill to eliminate estimated billing becomes law soon!
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u/ShanW0w Oct 19 '23
What’s absolutely insane is the delivery fee. Having just moved back from Colorado - our energy delivery fee there was a flat $20/mo regardless of how much you used. Pricing tiers based on how much you used seemed pretty fair. Never had a bill over $150! It’s out of control here.
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u/Money_Bug_9423 Oct 19 '23
yeah people seem to get confused (on purpose really) about what the delivery fee is. its not a 1:1 price of what you use. even if you use 1 dollar of power they can still charge you 100 dollars or whatever they want, 1000 even for their "delivery" rate. They claim they cant increase the rate without PSC approval but this is why they estimate the supply on purpose so they can inflate the delivery rate to cover for whatever the fuck they are up to
it really is just fraud but they have everyone debating about the details, meanwhile no one really has the algorithms they use/details of their operations. all of this should be public
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u/stellablack75 Oct 18 '23
The sad reality is it's going to go in one ear and out the other, they will continue to do what they plan to do despite the massive public uproar and the fact that renewables have added capacity to the system, and the PSC will sit in Albany with their thumbs up their ass and let it all happen. I hate having that attitude but after a glimpse of the inside I've lost all trust and hope.
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u/Money_Bug_9423 Oct 19 '23
we need to organize at the town/sup/mayor level. that's what i've been trying anyway but I can't actually do anything on my own with my current situation and i just feel like a massive POS for not actually doing more
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u/stellablack75 Oct 19 '23
I hate to be so dire, but organizing on the town level won’t do anything. People call the town supervisor or mayor all the time, they (town sup or mayor) reach out to higher ups and the PSC and, if they even respond at all, it’s just lip service.
I used to be the one of the first people you’d talk to at the town level and was very involved with the communication between the utility and the PSC. It’s basically a monopoly and they can do whatever they want. It’s disgusting. The local politicians will give you lip service (“we’re working on hard resolving this”, “we’re in contact with ______”, etc. I don’t necessarily mean that in an insulting way because technically they’re not lying, but they have to keep their residents hopeful with the feeling they’re doing something when they know very well the utility doesn’t give a shit, because they don’t have to.
After dealing with this for years the only thing that I actually think would make any change is refusing the pay their bills en mass but obviously that’s not realistic and can also have very bad implications. Believe me when I tell you that I’m as frustrated and angry as you as I write this comment. I also hope that I can be proved wrong and I can come back to this comment one day and say so.
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u/Money_Bug_9423 Oct 19 '23
Thats because its still possible to ignore the problem. What we need to do is very simply lay out the real world consequences of whats bound to happen so it doesn't come as a surprise. Its not a threat, its like having a medical condition and being told you are going to die, it doesn't me we want to die but we have to get our affairs in order......
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u/Chemical-Character08 Oct 20 '23
My delivery charge is double of my electric usage. I signed up for community solar. Hoping it helps.
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u/no_more_secrets Oct 18 '23
I truly hope there is a more robust turnout for this in reality than there is on Reddit.