Unaffordable? Or Unfair and Burdensome?

Deck: 

Defining Terms

Fortnightly Magazine - April 2024
This full article is only accessible by current license holders. Please login to view the full content.
Don't have a license yet? Click here to sign up for Public Utilities Fortnightly, and gain access to the entire Fortnightly article database online.

What do we mean when we say that something is unaffordable? I ask for a very good reason.

It is commonly said that a proposal to raise electric rates would make rates unaffordable. And it is commonly said too that rates are bound to become more unaffordable considering plans in the works to pursue the energy transformation.

EEI Annual Meeting 2024 - June 18-20

These things are said, typically, without specifying the red line that demarcates unaffordable electric rates from affordable rates. In the absence of such a definition, how then can we know when a proposal or plan would make rates unaffordable or would not?

Are electric rates unaffordable in some parts of the country and affordable elsewhere? Were rates affordable at times in the past and unaffordable at the other times?

This full article is only accessible by current license holders. Please login to view the full content.
Don't have a license yet? Click here to sign up for Public Utilities Fortnightly, and gain access to the entire Fortnightly article database online.