In my last post of energy conservation, June Follow up on Green Technology that pays for itself, I was surprised to find that my energy savings were being overwhelmed by electrical rate increases. This bothered me on several different levels. Naturally I was disappointed I was spending more for the same amount of electricity while my wages stagnate. The more curious problem was why did my rate go up when the price of natural gas and coal go down?

Yesterday I went through my electrical bills and added up my delivery and generation costs for the first five months of the year. I divided these two numbers by the total electricity used to come up with an average delivery and generation rate. I did the same for the first five months of last year, too. My delivery rate went up 18.3% while my generation rate went down ”“17.7%. The lower generation rate makes since it was highly influenced by the higher winter rate in January and February of 2011. The higher delivery rate does not make sense. This increase is much higher than inflation. What did Duke spend the money on?