Consumers are feeling the pinch, with brownouts in the East and utility rate hikes as high as 15%.
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The network monitors utility rate schedules and automatically transmits a signal to the vehicle through embedded cellular connectivity to start charging at the lowest cost.
For all of its flaws, the Bloom deal in Delaware established a small window of opportunity for cleantech firms to participate in the traditional electric utility rate setting process.
The son of a Kentucky lawyer, he worked as a reporter at the Lexington Herald-Leader for three years before going to law school and on to a job representing consumers in state utility rate cases.
As of now, most residential and commercial customers still pay their electric utility a flat rate multiplied by the kilowatt hours they use.
Consumers need to tell state regulators that when a utility seeks a rate increase, it matches every dollar it spends seeking that increase and turns that money over to advocates for residential, commercial and industrial customers who can challenge the increase.
And then there's the quasi-tax that Georgia's government has imposed on its utility customers in the form of early rate increases to help the utility avoid invoking the loan guarantee.
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When electricity first came here, dos Santos says, the utility charged a flat rate to entice people to go on the meter.
Hardest hit, says Robert Gordon of Twenty-First Securities, could be utility stocks and fixed-rate preferreds with no way to adjust upward.
If they put solar panels up which typically produce power during the hottest part of the day they can negotiate a rate structure with their utility can save them 10 to 15 cents per kilowatt-hour.
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The measure of the utility of any product is in the rate of market adoption.
Utility construction companies analyzed by Sageworks grew sales at an impressive rate of 18.29% in 2011, she said.
The lower tax rate on dividends has contributed to the above-average increase in utility share prices, the consulting firm adds.
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Sam Kazman of the Competitive Enterprise Institute points out the latest research from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety shows SUVs (sport utility vehicles) over 4, 500 pounds have a one-third lower death rate than cars below 2, 500 pounds.
OnStar will allow researchers to develop services such as demand-response that would allow drivers that sign up to let the utility control when their Volt is charged to minimize the impact on the grid in exchange for receiving a lower electricity rate or other incentives.
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