| Central Electric Power Cooperative |
 |
Most of us pay more attention to things that have a direct affect on our everyday lives. For example, doctors keep up on the latest news in the medical field, cattleman perk up when something is mentioned about ranching, and farmers never seem to lose interest in the weather. For those of us in the electric business, the hot topic for about a year now has been "retail wheeling" and various proposals to dramatically change how consumers buy their power. These changes will certainly affect the price and reliability of electric service. So what is this "retail wheeling" anyway?
One simple definition is that it "is the movement of electricity, owned by a power supplier and sold to a retail consumer, over transmission and distribution lines owned by neither one." A fee is charged by the owners of the lines for letting others use them. This transaction is called retail wheeling and a wheeling charge is levied for both transmission and distribution line "rental." Today, no utilities in Missouri have any retail wheeling transactions (other than pilot projects), because each utility actually owns the electricity that flows across its lines to retail consumers. Many consumers want to know why the implementation of retail wheeling is even being discussed? The answer is that some of the larger commercial and industrial electricity customers, especially in states with high cost power, believe that if they can wheel electricity in from a supplier other than their existing source that the price they pay plus the wheeling charge could be less than they are now paying. In a high cost state such as New Hampshire, they might be right. But, in Missouri, we have some of the lowest cost electricity in the nation, well below the national average, so lower costs from retail wheeling are not very likely. What could occur, however, is that some of the low cost Missouri electricity might be sold elsewhere, leaving Missouri residents with only higher cost options to choose from. You either have or will soon see TV ads that praise customer choice and promise reduced electricity costs. Just be aware that the big companies who paid for those ads have in mind choices that could very likely be higher for Missouri's rural consumers and would give cost reductions only to big customers at the expense of residential consumers. The issue is being debated nationally and in most state legislatures. It will be a year or two before any concrete proposals are made in Missouri. In the meantime, the Missouri electric cooperatives through our statewide organization, the Association of Missouri Electric Cooperatives, are closely watching both national and state legislative proposals for implementing retail wheeling and are determined to resist any new industry structure which would force higher costs on our members.