Higher electric bills? Most users unshocked

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Monday, April 23, 2001 - 12:00 a.m. Pacific

Higher electric bills? Most users unshocked

By Peter Lewis Seattle Times staff reporter

Past the early misery over rising power rates, many consumers seem to have settled in for the ride: goodbye to plentiful and cheap hydropower, hello to conservation and higher bills.

If this new reality's effect on the community psyche is hard to measure, so is the effect on consumer behavior. While there are some mixed signals, it's clearly a class story - hardship for the low income, a low-grade headache for others.

Francine Artis, a Tacoma Power official familiar with consumer complaints, likens the situation for most customers to grieving.

After a flurry of protest calls tied to higher bills in February, she said, the reaction shifted "from angry, to worried about how to pay, to consumers interested in doing what they can to reduce bills and help out with the energy crisis."

That scenario helps explain why, from Tacoma to Everett, customer-service representatives reported no spike in calls after the federal Bonneville Power Administration - a major supplier of electrical power - earlier this month said it might have to raise wholesale rates 250 percent come fall.

Of course, if that worst-case scenario comes to pass, a bloodier grieving cycle may begin anew. In the meantime, signs of changed behavior in response to the energy crunch are evident in some ways and nonexistent in others.

Utilities say more customers are seeking assistance through elderly/disabled and low-income programs that can cut bills in half. In Tacoma, for example, the utility reports that since a 50 percent surcharge went into effect Dec. 20, about 2,100 additional customers have enrolled for a discount rate.

Snohomish County PUD's energy-assistance office, which dispenses one-time grants to eligible low-income households, closed its doors in Everett last week because the $1.7 million in grant money ran out, said Bill Beuscher, supervisor of the program. Last year, when Snohomish County was awarded $896,000, it closed its program at the end of May.

In Seattle, officials say many low-income residents aren't getting the help they are entitled to. Last year, only 43 percent of customers eligible for the city's elderly/disabled discount plan enrolled, as did only 6 percent of the city's eligible low-income population. More than 10,000 additional people could have been helped in the elderly/disabled program, and more than 33,000 in the other plan.

Heidi Wills, who chairs a key City Council energy committee, said the city wants to do a better job of reaching out to customers in need.

It is softening eligibility requirements in some cases. And it plans to distribute promotional materials in 11 languages; place notices in community newsletters and ethnic newspapers; and beef up efforts at festivals, including Seafair.

Because of billing cycles, it's too soon for utilities to say if delinquency rates will rise as a result of higher bills. But that would be "a logical outcome," said Bob Peck, a credit/collections manager at City Light.

For the masses, though, the effect thus far seems relatively modest - adjusting to living in semi-darkness in homes and offices and squinting a bit more in some stores, like Fred Meyer, where "reduced-lighting" policies are in effect.

With adjustments for differing weather conditions, Puget Sounders consumed less energy in the first three months of this year compared with last, according to figures released by four utilities. Seattle City Light says power consumption is down by 5 percent; Tacoma Power claims 9 percent savings; Snohomish County PUD, 5 percent; and Puget Sound Energy, 4 percent.

City Light spokesman Bob Royer said a "phase 2" effort will get under way next month, with a shift in emphasis from residential to commercial conservation.

Alluding to the assertive women in the hit movie "Nine to Five," Royer said the utility hopes to energize the "Dolly Partons and Lily Tomlins" of the work force to save energy in offices, such as cutting cooling and lighting.

Still, there is no indication that rising energy costs are changing lifestyles or causing consumers to make long-term investments to insulate themselves.

For example, those with always-on, high-speed Internet service apparently are unmoved.

Steve Kipp, spokesman for AT&T Broadband, which provides cable-modem service to more than 100,000 @Home customers in Western Washington - the bulk of them in the Seattle area - says network administrators are "seeing no change whatsoever" in usage.

Even in the San Francisco Bay Area, which has had rolling blackouts, cable-modem customers have not cut back, Kipp said.

"People basically waited until the outage was done," he said, "then went to eBay. It really didn't change the overall usage. People have gotten to the point that they're going to surf the Net by candlelight if they have to. They're not going to stop because of a higher power bill."

In a similar vein, the power crisis has not become severe enough to trigger a rush to remodel or winterize homes.

"I think consumers take a while to get to those things," said Sandy McAdams, referring to pricey jobs like converting from electric heat to a gas furnace, or paying for new siding or energy-efficient windows.

McAdams, who runs her own contracting business and is first vice president with the Bellevue-based Master Builders Association, an industry trade group, said there have not been many calls from customers citing the energy crunch.

"I don't think it's rippled down that far yet," she said. Probably by the end of summer, or early fall, if we're still struggling the way we are, then I think we may see some people feeling they've got to do something."

Peter Lewis can be reached at 206-464-2217 or plewis@seattletimes.com.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/134287894_consumer23m0.html



-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), April 23, 2001


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