From a reader of McHenry County Blog under this day before Christmas, 2023, article:

My Pet Peeve about Commonwealth Edison

Hey Cal,

Mark Farrell here. (waves)

A few months back, we received an electric bill that nearly caused me to pee in my pants. The bill had been hovering around $200 to $220 for several months. As a result of the pandemic, the kids work from home and have 3 sometimes 4 high performance computers running 24/7 along with 7 monitors.

I didn’t have to turn heat on all winter.

Quite the opposite, sometimes I had to open windows to let the heat out.

Then, without warning, the bill skyrocketed to $330.

I called CommieEd and screamed bloody murder and the daft dimwit at the other end of the line simply said,

“There were no changes that would have caused your bill to suddenly jump and ‘you know’ that it costs more to heat a home in the winter, than it does to cool it in the summer.”

To which I replied, “I HAVE NOT turned my heat on all winter, so that’s a load of garbage. I don’t trust your ‘smart meters’ at all. I need someone to service the damn thing and find out if its working properly and refund me if it’s not.”

Surprisingly, she sent me to the actual service department person who scheduled a meter test for “Sometime in the next few months.”

I was never told anything about the meter test results, but with this previous bill, the charges dropped nearly $50 for absolutely no apparent reason.

We’ve not made any changes to the power usage in any way that would have affected the bill like that.

The apartment is 100% electric and nothing seems to be failing that might cause energy loss.

And, certainly nothing that would all of the sudden start using less energy without noticeable change to it’s operation.

This is particularly frustrating as I’ve been an electrician in the professional world since the mid 70’s and started working with electronics (seriously) around age 14. My father George, was an electrical engineer, so a lot of that rubbed off. 🙂

Needless to say, every time I get a reply off of a script, I cringe and grit my teeth, knowing that they are heaping on the fertilizer to someone they think is a complete cretin.

I admit, there are times I’m a bit of a know-it-all and tend to show off, but I’ve been involved with this industry for long enough to know that when they start arguing about guaranteeing shareholders profits, we are doomed.

I personally feel that common ‘required’ utilities and natural resources should never have been turned over to the commercial-for-profit marketplace.

Because, this is what happens and you can’t stop it or even kill it.

It would make my day (month / year / lifetime) to see CommunistEdison get consumed by the State.

We’re lucky they can’t offshore the operation of CommieEd, they’d need one hell of a long extension cord.

Once a company goes ‘public’, I believe that according to the SEC, that their primary goal is to always provide (ensure) their shareholders with the highest profit possible, through any and all means.

And it sure shows every time ComEd opens its mouth about how they need to make a billion or two more next year to meet their shareholders needs – oh, and possibly to do some needed work on the grid.

Not only do they hold a monopoly on the service and supply end, they hold a stranglehold monopoly on the actual fitting of service to a structure.

In other words, “You will have a Commonwealth Edison service installed and be charged accordingly, even if you don’t use our electricity.” This is going on all over the country.

In the Western states, when certain areas went all solar, wind, battery and inverters, their electricity vendors immediately created a surtax for anyone using less than a minimum amount of energy “to make up for losses”.

“to make up for losses”

What a quaint and almost poetic way of saying:

“Look here Mr/Mrs Public, you are screwed no matter what you think or what you do.
We will have our way with you and that’s that. Your only choice is what kind of lube.”

Since most of our bills are based on a percentage charge of kW/h used, you can bet even money, that every power company, in every state, will be doing the same – eventually.

That’s what a monopoly is all about, right?

The end of choice.

Seems sort of like government without representation…

I wonder how many of those “smart” power meters are skimming or should I say “skinning” us each month.