Donnelly Unveils Exciting New Campaign Themes
posted by
1970s Abraham Lincoln
posted
10/2/2007 2:25:21 PM
I’ve heard a lot of people use the phrase “I almost feel sorry for Tom Donnelly.” It’s not surprising. Donnelly has taken a spectacular beating at the polls and in the debates in recent
weeks, so most people naturally feel a bit of sympathy for the guy. That is, until he opens his mouth.
In Monday’s debate (covered in better detail here), Jason Lefferts of the Fitchburg Pride asked Lisa Wong a great question about Unitil’s rate increase request. Wong acknowledged that Unitil’s rates have been a burden on residents and business and emphasized the need to look at alternative energy sources, adding that we should “find options to solve it," but "not drown our sorrows in Unitil and their high prices."
In contrast, Donnelly’s answer echoed one of his two new campaign themes:
1. “I am the best person to find other people to do the job”
2. “We’re fucked, get used to it”
He first explained that there’s nothing anyone can do about Unitil’s rates, and suggested that maybe another company* might buy them out one day (and presumably lower rates). He then explained that Unitil only charges about a dollar a month more than competitive suppliers on average, and the reason our bills look so much higher is because we get both our gas and electricity statements on one bill.
Tom Donnelly, you just blew my mind! I wonder if this new and exciting theory would be supported by a comparison of utility rates from other providers. Let's find out!
I took a year’s worth of our own usage data and compared Unitil’s electric rates to National Grid, and Unitil’s gas rates to Keyspan. We use about 8400kw of electricity a year. That's probably a lot, but we do have a lot of power tools and a wise-cracking, breakdancing robot servant. I'm not sure about wise-cracking, but breakdancing uses a lot of electricity:
|
National Grid |
Unitil |
| Kilowatt Hours |
8400 |
8400 |
| Customer Charge |
$6.10 |
$3.02 |
| Distribution Charge |
$0.02525 |
$0.04325 |
| Transmission Charge |
$0.01238 |
$0.01352 |
| Transition Charge |
$0.0039 |
$0.02346 |
| Demand Side Management Charge |
$0.0025 |
|
| Renewables Charge |
$0.0005 |
$0.0005 |
| Supplier Service |
$0.10215 |
$0.10425 |
|
|
|
| Annual cost: |
$1305.31 |
$1590.07 |
Additionally, we use about 1300 therms of natural gas a year. Mostly this is from heating.
| |
Keyspan |
Unitil |
| Therms |
1300 |
1300 |
| Customer Charge |
$13.04 |
$8.50 |
| Distribution Charge |
$0.21 |
$0.43 |
| Distribution Adjustment Charge |
$0.057 |
$0.0523 |
| Cost of Gas |
$0.9454 |
$1.077 |
| |
|
|
| Annual cost: |
$1732.60 |
$2132.08 |
So if we used the same amount of energy, but had National Grid and Keyspan as our suppliers instead of Unitil, we'd save around $700 a year. I'm not sure how this reconciles with Tom's "dollar a month" study, but I'm sure when he's mayor he can appoint a blue ribbon panel of experts to investigate and report the findings back to him.
*A
magical company!
Tags: donnelly, wong, unitil
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