InDepthNH.org (http://indepthnh.org/series/power-to-the-people/page/2/)
D. Maurice KreisPower to the People is a new column by D. Maurice Kreis, New Hampshire’s Consumer Advocate. Kreis and his staff of four represent the interests of residential utility customers before the NH Public Utilities Commission and elsewhere.
NH’s consumer advocate weighs in on Northern Pass. “If you dislike Northern Pass, you should dislike ‘New England Clean Energy Connect’ even more. That’s CMP’s rival project – which would, if built, do to pristine areas in Maine’s rural Franklin and Somerset counties exactly what Northern Pass would do to similar locations in the Granite State.”
“Jane Doe” is getting her $560 million Powerball prize from the New Hampshire Lottery – and the rest of us might end up paying huge price when it comes to government transparency.
Power to the People: What happens at dawn when the power goes out at the home of New Hampshire’s consumer advocate, the man who represents the interests of residential utility customers before the Public Utilities Commission? And it’s wicked cold.
In the spirit of the season, the December 25 edition of this column Power to the People foregoes the usual tales of ratepayer exploitation. Instead, we visit Montana.
Power to the People – In season 2 of the TV series Stranger Things, the bedraggled residents of Hawkins, Indiana struggle against the Mind Flayer – an uncontrollable, intelligent force from another dimension that wreaks havoc via the underground tentacles it has threaded beneath every part of town. The whole mess is the result of evil experiments conducted by rogue elements of the U.S. Department of Energy.
Fifteen million bucks, parceled out over the 40-year useful life of the project, is not exactly a Megabucks ratepayer jackpot.
New Hampshire uses about 9 percent of New England’s electricity. So, if a couple of rogue utilities pulled some sneaky tricks over three years that caused wholesale electricity prices in New England to be $3.6 billion higher than they should have been, that’s $324 million that was siphoned out of the pockets of electric customers in the Granite State.
The truth about the cost of electricity in New Hampshire from some folks who know.
Liberty Utilities is on the march, working hard to grow its natural gas empire in New Hampshire. What’s a ratepayer advocate to do? What does the public interest require?