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WPCNR THE POWER STORY. By John F. Bailey July 2, 2026:

My June Con Edison bill is in.

In May my electric bill from Con Ed was $203.42. However May was a relatively cool wet month with some use of air conditioning.

This month June turned hotter culminating in this current heat wave expected to last through Sunday.

We kept our air conditioning at 77 degrees as a turn on (cooling) temperature.

Through June 30 I  used  703 kilowatt hours  for a charge of $272.69  including the Delivery charge.

The charge for  MY electricity supply was $94.27  for 703 kilowatt hours, plus $178.42 cents for the Delivery Charge of 19.154 cents per kilowatt hour (the cost of the electricity itself is 12.01 cents  per kilowatt hour for the actual electricity streamed  through the wires for  those 703 Kilowatt hours .

The math indicates that the Delivery Charge is 34% of my electric bill.

Woe to those who use natural gas-supplied electricity. You are charged more for the electricity generated by natural gas (the price of which was raised)in recent  round of price increases approved by the Public Service Commission.

Remember when  State Senators and Assembly members formed a committee to try and lower the Con Ed increases? They told us  they were able to lower the rates to a 3.5% increase.

The State Senators and Assembly Members did not do the math. Thanks to the new increases approved the Delivery charge is increasing the electric bill by 35%.

The only weapon against Con Ed is your thermostat.

For the rest of this summer you have to cut down on your  kilowatthours. You cannot eat kilowatthours.

If you have central air you have to  raise the turn on temperature to  80 or 82 degrees or higher  in your house. In apartments where the settings if controlled by the landlord they have help you out or if you can self-control your apartment  when the air comes on turn it off during the day and let it cool when you get home at night.

Last June my Con Ed bill was $171.95 including the delivery charge this year based on Con Ed recommended thermostat of 78 degrees for air conditioning, it is $272.69

The committee should have had  some price demonstrations of various kilowatt hour usage levels to see how the prices would affect escalation in usage across various kilowatt hour usages.

This afternoon on Bloomberg Radio New York State was urging consumers  conserve electricity.

Over the last three years the power war against green sources of energy was won by the power company lobbies.

When Sustainable Westchester and Westchester Power proved that people and communities would support green energy  and even saved money with fixed rates over the cost of the year this cost Con Ed the  electricity business of 29 of  42 Westchester County towns.

Now they have them all back.

Another thing, if I may when the New York  Independent Systems Operator decreed in their wisdom that all companies forced to buy power off the Power Grid had to pay the highest rate charged by the most expensive suppler ( Natural Gas), the rational was  the state had to assure an adequate supply of electricity on the grid which apparently would be threatened if Escos and organizations like Westchester Power could not supply their customers with electricity.

But wait a minute.

If the escos and power companies across the state couldn’t handle high demands 5 years ago, did the Public Service Commission, the NYISO and legislators make it mandatory the Escos and suppliers like Westchester Power turn to green energy sources or more generating equipment?

No, they did not. They put Westchester Power and cooperative buyers across state out of business to save the big power companies.

Now five years later we have a 100 year heat wave.

Three days into the heat wave—-

The Grid can’t help it.

The Grid can’t help it.

The solution is to build small atomic power plants which will take about a decade.

The state has to really pay attention to this power company-regulator relationship.