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Power sales plunged 39 percent since ‘06
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Posted on Dec 05 2008
The Commonwealth Utilities Corp. has lost more than 170 million kWh worth of electricity sales in the past two years, according to a report prepared for the Public Utilities Commission.
Sales have decreased from 433 million kilowatt hours in fiscal year 2006 to 306 million kWhs in fiscal year 2007, according to the report prepared by the Georgetown Consulting Group for PUC. Although results for fiscal year 2008 were not available, the Georgetown Consultants were able to use month-to-month figures to determine that the total sales for September 2007 to August 2008 were 263 million.
The numbers show CUC’s sales have shown “a[n] enormous decline of 39.3 percent” for the two-year period, according to the report.
“It is obvious that CUC is losing sales on a virtually continuous month-to-month basis,” the report states.
According to the report, losses of industrial customers—such as the garment factories—have had a direct effect, which in turn has affected those employees using residential electricity. Reduced business activity also causes the decrease in sales.
In August 2008 CUC sold 18 million kWhs—10 million less compared to the same period in 2006.
Also, the report notes that the rolling brownouts and islandwide blackouts affected sales, specifically business sales.
“As a consequence and in response to [outages], many businesses have installed their own generation to ensure they have a ready and reliable power supply,” the report states. “As those entities supply their own power requirements, they of course have reduced need or no need at all, for electrical energy produced by CUC even as CUC’s power production units come back on line. This loss of load can be termed un-served load, but in any case results in attrition of saleable kilowatt-hours.”
The report is meant to help the PUC review and set utility rates before the Dec. 31, 2008, deadline set by law. If the PUC fails to meet this deadline, CUC will be forced to reduce power rates down to 17 cents per kWh.
