Showing posts with label Electric. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Electric. Show all posts

Thursday, May 14, 2026

The Grid That Democrats Built

Democrats Spent Decades Wrecking the Power Grid and Now 67 Million Americans Are About to Pay for It

PJM Interconnection just dropped a report called "Powering Reliability Through Market Design." The title sounds like a policy seminar. The contents read like a warning flare.

The grid is running short on power, and PJM is proposing what it calls "differential reliability" – a plan to ration electricity by cutting off data centers and large new businesses first while residential customers keep the lights on.

The math behind the crisis is damning. Construction timelines for new power plants have doubled. A natural gas turbine now takes at least four years from approval to operation, and environmental reviews routinely drag on longer than that.

The moment PJM reopened its interconnection queue after a years-long backlog, over 800 applications flooded in totaling 220 gigawatts of potential capacity.

The supply exists. Democrats spent decades making sure it couldn't be built.

Read more about it...

PJM Interconnection is a Regional Transmission Organization (RTO) that coordinates the movement of wholesale electricity for 67 million people across 13 states and the District of Columbia. As the largest power grid in North America, it operates competitive electricity markets, ensures reliability, and manages over 88,000 miles of transmission lines.

Monday, February 23, 2026

Big Tech's Billion-Dollar Loophole

Trump Just Told Peter Navarro to Make Meta Pay for Something It Quietly Shifted Onto Your Bill

Your electricity bill went up again last month.

And while you were opening that envelope, Meta – a company worth $1.6 trillion – was quietly letting you cover one cost of powering it all.

Peter Navarro just went on Fox News and said the White House is done letting that happen – and what he described is the kind of accountability Big Tech hasn't faced in decades.

Here's how the loophole works:
  • When Meta or Google or Microsoft builds a massive data center – a building that consumes as much electricity as a small city – utilities have to build new power lines, new transformers, and new generating capacity to feed it.
  • Under rules designed a century ago for a very different world, those infrastructure costs get spread across every ratepayer in the region.
  • That means you.
  • Not Meta.
  • Not Google.
  • You.
And the numbers aren't small.

Read more abou it...

Sunday, February 1, 2026

Electric bills rising in Lake Worth Beach

Electric bills rising for 28,000 customers after Lake Worth Beach vote

The Lake Worth Beach City Commission raised a fee within the bill to help cover the rising cost of natural gas, a key fuel source for the city.

Lake Worth Beach's electric utility will raise rates after city commissioners approved an increase on Jan. 29, hoping to blunt financial havoc this weekend's freezing weather will wreak on a main energy source for the city-owned utility. [PBPost]

Ratepayers were told that the adjustment needed to rise to $6.44 monthly, however the Commision felt the raise should be $7.00 per kWh for a safety net. The vote was 4/0 with McVoy absent.

Ed Liberty said that will stabilize everything for at least nine months. City law requires the electric utility to buy natural gas with that money.

Half the electricity the utility sells to its 28,000 customers in and around Lake Worth Beach comes from that fuel source.

January 29, meeting

At approximately 1:17.54 on the video the rate discussion begins from the Electric Utlity Director, Ed Liberty.

Florida Power & Light (FPL) is raising rates starting January 1, 2026, as part of a 4-year, $7 billion plan approved by the Florida Public Service Commission. For most customers, the typical monthly bill (1,000-kWh) will increase by roughly $2.50.

Saturday, January 24, 2026

Lake Worth Beach Lineman sent to South Carolina

Lake Worth Beach linemen head to South Carolina ahead of winter storm

Crews from Lake Worth Beach Electric Utilities will arrived in South Carolina to assist with anticipated power outages from a winter storm expected this weekend.

The City of Lake Worth Beach is sending two crews of linemen and equipment to help restore electric service.

Friday, April 26, 2024

New Electric System Upgrade will immensely benefit Lake Worth Beach

Lake Worth Beach, Fla., Details Benefits of New Electric System Operations Center

The City of Lake Worth Beach, Fla., recently announce that its new Electric System Operations Center is officially completed and has been placed in service.

“This new facility significantly modernizes our operations and allows us to better serve our customers,” the city said in a LinkedIn post.

“Housed within an existing City facility, this long-awaited new facility is the culmination of years of planning and preparation by various Lake Worth Beach Electric Utility departments,” said Ed Liberty, Lake Worth Beach’s Electric Utility Director.

“Team members from our System Operations, the Power Plant team, Engineering, Operational Technology, and Project Management Office helped design the facility and coordinated efforts to successfully transition all operations from the prior location,” he said.

The new ESOC provides the city’s electric utility with a modern, storm hardened and secure environment from which to monitor all aspects of the operation of our electric transmission and distribution system.

Read more about our new electric system upgrade

Friday, March 22, 2024

Lake Worth Beach new Electric System Operations Center

City of Lake Worth Beach's new Electric System Operations Center

The City of Lake Worth Beach is excited to announce our new Electric System Operations Center (ESOC) is now officially completed and has been placed in service. This new facility significantly modernizes our operations and allows us to better serve our customers.

“Our new Electric System Operations Center (ESOC) is now officially completed and has been placed in service”, says Ed Liberty, Lake Worth Beach’s Electric Utility Director. “Housed within an existing City facility, this long-awaited new facility is the culmination of years of planning and preparation by various Lake Worth Beach Electric Utility departments. Team members from our System Operations, the Power Plant team, Engineering, Operational Technology, and Project Management Office helped design the facility and coordinated efforts to successfully transition all operations from the prior location.”

The new ESOC provides our electric utility with a modern, storm hardened and secure environment from which to monitor all aspects of the operation of our electric transmission and distribution system. Staffed around the clock, seven days per week, by a rotating team of Electric System Operators who monitor our electric system and dispatch crews to respond to power outages, direct network switching by field personnel, and issue work requests.

“Our new ESOC incorporates all of the technologies we’ve updated and installed over the past few years on a readily viewable and configurable interactive wall of monitors and smart boards that give us a broad overview of the electric system. A wall of interactive monitors tied to servers and multiple system sensors and meters gives us the ability to drill down in detail block by block and more quickly assess problems with our system and rapidly initiate corrective actions. This new facility significantly modernizes our operations and allows us to better serve our customers”, adds Jason Bailey, Assistant Director Electric System Operations.

The project was funded using proceeds from our Series 2020 Consolidated Utility Revenue Bond and is an element of our System Hardening and Reliability Improvement Program.

🔌Congratulations and Thank You to everyone who was involved.

Ed Liberty, Electric Utility Director

Wednesday, February 7, 2024

Lake Worth Beach to lower Electric rate

PRESS RELEASE
FOR RELEASE UPON RECEIPT
City of Lake Worth Beach
7 North Dixie Highway
Lake Worth Beach, FL 33460
www.lakeworthbeachfl.gov

Contact: Ed Liberty
Phone: 561.586.1631
Email: eliberty@lakeworthbeachfl.gov

February 6, 2024

PRESS RELEASE: Electric Utility Rates

Lake Worth Beach, FL - The City of Lake Worth Beach is pleased to announce that on January 30, 2024, the City Commission voted unanimously to reduce the monthly electric bill for all customers of the City’s electric utility effective March 1, 2024. As a point of reference, a typical customer using 1,000 kWh (kilowatt-hours) of electricity monthly will see a decrease of $6.95 in their bill. Customers will see the reduction in the Purchased Power Cost Adjustment (PCA) line item on their bills.

The decrease in the PCA is reflective of lower natural gas costs associated with the production of electricity to meet the needs of the utility’s customers. By approving this rate decrease, the City Commission of Lake Worth Beach maintains its commitment to constant cost of services evaluation and passing any cost savings on to the customers. Out of the 37 Municipal and IOUs (Investor Owned Utilities), the City’s electric rate is currently the 8th lowest in the State of Florida.

The City Commission also voted to transfer $1 million of PCA working capital to the Rate Stabilization Fund, which will grow the fund to a total of $3.5 million while leaving approximately $600,000 in the PCA working capital account to accommodate short term fluctuations in wholesale energy prices. The Rate Stabilization Fund is intended to provide a source of funds to lessen the impact to customer rates of rapid increases in wholesale energy costs.

Located in central Palm Beach County, Lake Worth Beach is a dynamic, multi-cultural city with an individualistic style. People are drawn to the City by its acceptance of different cultures and lifestyles, historic districts, hip downtown and colorful arts district. ####

Thursday, December 8, 2022

Iguana causes power outage in Lake Worth Beach

Iguana causes 'large-scale' power outage in Lake Worth Beach

City says Lake Worth Beach Electric Utility restores power in about 35 minutes

"Iguanas can cause all kinds of problems in South Florida — including causing power outages.

The city of Lake Worth Beach tweeted late Wednesday morning that there was a large-scale outage caused by an iguana. The issue occurred at the city's Sixth Avenue substation.

According to city spokesman Ben Kerr, the outage affected 1,431 customers yesterday in the South East area of their service area." [WPTV]

Lake Worth Beach @LakeWorthBchPBC
LWB Electric Utility is currently responding to a large scale outage caused by an iguana at our 6th Ave Substation. This outage is effecting customers in the South East area of our service territory. Our teams are working hard to repair the damage and restore the system.

Thursday, November 3, 2022

'I can't afford my electric bill'

Lake Worth Beach residents saw a massive jump in charges

"Temperatures are beginning to cool, but customers of Lake Worth Beach's municipally owned utility are heating up over surging electric bills.

Sky-rocketing costs for natural gas coupled by increased energy use during the summer months resulted in an unhappy surprise when September's bill arrived for many of the utility's nearly 28,000 customers.

All customers were hit with a 16.25% jump on the ''power cost adjustment'' portion of their bill, which permits utilities to adjust the price of electricity to reflect fluctuations in the cost of fuel used to supply power.

My power cost adjustment was 85% of my fuel cost...not close to the 16.25% increase the city touts. I had an electric audit by the city and I was told that the power cost adjustment was a TAX.

Utilities Director Ed Liberty said the culprit is natural gas prices that have quadrupled over the past year. Around half the fuel mix that goes into powering all of Lake Worth Beach is made up of natural gas.

The spiraling costs left the city utility with an unanticipated multi-million dollar gap between fees collected from residents and the price for buying that fuel.

Jorge Milian's article in the Palm Beach Post

As an aside, Commissioner Kimberly Stokes was the only commissioner to vote against.

Wednesday, October 19, 2022

Our Electric Utility

Electric Utility Rates ⚡ as explained by the City

This week we are taking a closer look at the rise in electric rates that customers are facing in Lake Worth Beach. To help customers better understand the situation each day we will be breaking down a part of what has caused this to happen and what residents can do to limit the amount of financial pain caused by this rise.

Today we will start with a look at the external factors. To understand how these affect us we must first understand that our electric rate is made up of two costs, a static cost referred to as the “base energy charge” and a variable cost referred to as the “purchased power cost” (listed in your bill as “Power Cost Adjustment”). Our base energy rates are reviewed annually but aren’t likely to change by a large amount as this category is made up of things like maintaining the poles, wires, transformers, and equipment you see in your community. The “base energy charge” includes the cost of the personnel that ensure your home is powered, our costs for nuclear power which are relatively stable, and our debt service associated with our investments in infrastructure. These costs, for the most part, are known ahead of time and remain relatively stable throughout the year and have predictable escalation.

In Lake Worth Beach we often like to think of ourselves as being in control of our destiny due to us having the benefit of owning our own utilities rather than having a profit driven commercial entity running our utility service. Even though we own our own power plant it is antiquated and expensive to operate, but has served us well for since the 1960s. To save you money we purchase energy at much lower costs than we could make it ourselves and it is this cost that varies based on external factors.

Fifty to sixty percent of our electricity is produced by natural gas in highly efficient power plants located across the state. This means that natural gas is burned in order to turn very large turbines and make electricity. This natural gas is piped in from sources along the US southeast gulf coast and has a cost just like the gasoline you use to power your car. Changes in global natural gas prices, increasing demand as our economy rebounds from the effects of the Covid pandemic, increased demand for natural gas as older coal power plants are retired, and lack of sufficient pipeline capacity to get natural gas to markets have caused the cost of this natural gas to increase. These forces combine to increase the cost to produce the electricity you use in your home. These fuel costs are passed on to your electric utility which passes them on to you.

Right now utilities across the US are facing rapidly rising costs for natural gas which have more than tripled in the past year. In Europe natural gas prices are up to ten times higher than here in the US, small consolation as increasing amounts of US natural gas is being liquefied and shipped to international markets, which further increases pressures on natural gas prices. This is not a situation that is unique to us and even profit driven utilities such as FPL have had to raise their rates due to these costs, with additional rate increases likely in the coming months. Unlike many utilities however we have been able to minimize these rate hikes due to a couple of positive factors in our favor:

  • 1. We have reduced our reliance on natural gas by being a part owner of the FMPA St Lucie Project, a Nuclear Power Plant investment from which we’ve received energy since the 1980s. This produces 36% of our electricity and because of how nuclear works it does so with a much more static cost across its lifetime. This power plant will remain a low-cost and carbon-free feature of our portfolio at least through 2043.
  • 2. Coal plays a small part in our portfolio by being a part owner of the FMPA Stanton I Project, a coal plant investment from which we’ve received energy since the 1980s. This produces up to 10% of our electricity over the course of a year and is scheduled for retirement by year-end 2025 when it will be replaced by solar energy.
  • 3. We invested in our own 1.7MW solar field. In 2017 we opened our own solar field on top of an old landfill and this is able to produce a portion of our electricity. This produces up to 0.75% of our electricity over the course of a year. While it’s the most expensive cost of power in our portfolio it is constant in price and has zero air emissions.
  • 4. We’ve committed to significant increases in renewable energy purchases such as solar. We have signed contracts for solar energy from three massive solar fields totaling 36.55MW covering hundreds of acres. These projects are currently in the process of being designed, permitted, and constructed. As these start producing power for us in late 2023, 2024, and 2025 we will see our reliance on natural gas lessen which will allow our fuel cost to not just decrease but to become much more stable over the long term.
In addition to these steps we have taken, and continue to take, to reduce our reliance on natural gas we are also updating our electric transmission & distribution system to both improve efficiency and improve reliability, making what fuel we use go further for you.

Monday, September 12, 2022

How's California's Electric Grid?

California Takes Unprecedented Measure to Save Dying Electric Grid

Recently, there has been a lot of coverage devoted to California in the media and it would seem that none of it has been positive.

The majority of the issues that we have been observing can be attributed to the energy crisis that the state is currently facing. At the very least, California has battled with a burden on the electricity grid for the second year in a row, but if I’m not mistaken, the issue stretches back even farther than that.

For whatever reason, their electrical grid is constantly being overwhelmed. During the year 2019, the New York Post reported that an old man who was powerless without his oxygen machine passed away after the electricity in his home was cut off.

Read about it... and the "green" Governor's directive that all vehicles must be electric by 2035.

Monday, May 16, 2022

Russia cuts off Finland from electricity for "non-payment"

Russia Cuts Off Electricity to Finland As Nation Courts NATO

The Russian supplier claims Finland was cut off for non-payment. The move came as Finnish politicians announced their plan to join the international defense group NATO.

Finnish transmission system operator Fingrid said in a statement that Russia’s imports only accounted for 10% of its consumption.

“The lack of electricity import from Russia will be compensated by importing more electricity from Sweden and by generating more electricity in Finland,” Reima Päivinen, senior vice president of power system operations said.

“Finland can cope without Russian electricity, now and even next winter, when the consumption will be higher.”

Read more...

Wednesday, December 8, 2021

City pulled the plug on Homeless artist at Lake Worth beach

Unplugged Homeless Artist All Charged Up After Grinches Pull Plug On Lake Worth Beach Holiday Tree

Read Joe Capozzi's article

Tuesday, July 27, 2021

Electric Cost of Service Study

Presentation tonight, July 27, 5pm City Hall on Electric Cost

Placed on the agenda by Sarah Malega--

Based on the analyses in this Report, the proposed rates represent a realignment of costs allocated among the residential and commercial classes.

It is projected that the proposed rates will be sufficient to meet the projected revenue requirements for the fiscal years ending September 30, 2020 through 2023. For certain analyses, the "Test Year" has been identified as the fiscal year ending September 30, 2020.

Tuesday, February 2, 2021

It's Irrelevant, says Nancy Pelosi

Pelosi Calls Her Insider Trading Million Dollar Tesla Stock Buy ‘Not Relevant’

Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was called out for her very profitable insider trading Tesla stock deal that she made shortly before the Biden administration released plans to make the federal automobile fleet electric.

Tesla stock has been a darling of Wall Street for years, and the company, as well as corrupt members of Congress, stand to reap huge profits if the federal government mandates that their 645,000 car fleet be overhauled to only consist of electric vehicles.

Read more about our gal...

Friday, December 4, 2020

Planned outage in Lake Worth

The City of Lake Worth Beach announced there will be a planned outage for some residents today, Friday.

The outage will be from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. for 75 customers between 202 S  Palmway to 201 S Lakeside and between 414 S Palmway to 421 S Lakeside. The customers that will be affected have already received a door hangar with more information.

Thursday, April 30, 2020

Lake Worth's Electric Utility

Coronavirus Florida: Lake Worth Beach residents aren’t in the dark, but will city be in the red?

"Through April 24, nearly 2,600 customers whose accounts were delinquent and eligible for disconnection before the moratorium have maintained use of their utilities, electric utility director Ed Liberty said."

And that's enough to put our Electric Utility in a precarious position.

Our lame-duck Commissioner Hardy thinks we should get rid of it to Florida Power & Light and states that we are the only city in Palm Beach County with its own power plant. So what? Lake Worth always wants to either give something away or sell it for peanuts...just get if off their plate. We need our Utility to help operate our city.

We have had our own power since 1914 all thanks to the Pioneers. And on top of it all, our electrical utility decided to upgrade to 26.4kv, a non-standard in the industry and one that FPL does not use as far as I know.

Read about it...

Monday, September 23, 2019

Lighting Up Lake Worth with Clean Cavitation Energy

“Energy Tourism” appears to be in the future for Lake Worth

with it becoming an “Economic Powerhouse.”

Mayor Pam Triola has been instrumental in both “Solar power” and “Gulfstream power.” She began with a solar farm she brought to Lake Worth and is already delivering significant power to the electric grid through the Lake Worth power station… Ed Liberty, Electric Utility Director Lake Worth, brought her good ideas into the Power Utility and the two of them are now reshaping the energy future of Lake Worth.

Both Ed and Mayor Pam are also involved in the groundbreaking work to harness the electric power producing potential of Gulfstream Current. This is a project where FAU received a Federal grant to develop the turbine technology, and in the near future the goal will be running the power from the turbines to the Lake Worth Power grid.

Even more impressive, because of the electricity and the money it can make for Lake Worth, and for the Energy Tourism that could result from it, is the development of a “Cavitation Energy” prototype at the Lake Worth Power Utility, funded by the owners of CAVITATION ENERGY SYSTEMS and to be built by Florida Atlantic University.

I believe this will be the Alternative Energy project that Lake Worth could actually get “rich” with, if a town could “get rich.”  Cavitation Energy is CLEAN ENERGY . Even it’s waste - Steam  byproduct, can be used to clean polluted water if we wish ( water polluted by someone else). In other words, this is beyond clean!

FAU tests already showed the first  Cavitation Energy  System prototype could take a small generation of power and use this  to create Cavitation implosions in a “cavitation engine” that multiplies the source power to  far beyond what science used to believe possible.

Think of the “cavitation engine” as a modular “engine” using something similar to diesel injectors that create the bubbles and shoot them into impact chambers, where the cavitation bubbles ignite at 18,000 degrees kelvin, and generate plasma/steam for a turbine to make electricity.

FAU has proven that with fresh water being shot into the impact chambers, the bubble implosions create enough steam to run a turbine for electrical production putting out 5 times the power put into it by solar, natural gas or Gulfstream Energy.  With saltwater used instead, the implosion reactions are far more violent, releasing closer to 18 times the power put in…but the long term operation with salt needs a few more tweaks before it can be utilized for a town….future grants are necessary, of course.

For now, the 5 times increase is very dramatic all by itself and Cavitation Energy Systems is  presently in talks with the town to get the new  prototype built at the  Lake Worth power plant where it could run a large building in phase one, a city block in phase 2, and the whole downtown in a phase 3. The system is perfectly modular, allowing very easing scaling of additional power. 10 megawatts of Solar produced Electricity would become 50 megawatts of Electricity in our grid.

The future could mean a huge net EXPORT of electrical energy for Lake Worth, generating  untold  millions of dollars per year to Lake Worth and then “ENERGY TOURISM” - where companies and countries come from all over the world to learn how they could use Cavitation Energy.

By: Dan Volker
Lake Worth

Wednesday, August 1, 2018

Lake Worth's Special Meeting on our Utility


I'll be watching this right along with you as I only stayed for 1.5 hours as the President was speaking last night.

Ed Liberty, the Utility Director, presented the projects that are planned that have a big price tag.

The city manager says it is years of benign neglect that has put us where we are today. Of course, the "owners," we the property owners, have been complaining for years about the lack of maintenance with all of our assets. So now, it seems that everything is hitting us at once as far as costs for repairs in this city.

The city manager says they are ready to hit the road running...make our asset into a brand. Certainly happy that after six years of being here, he realizes that this is one of our top assets and must be maintained.

One revelation:  The power outage we had in April is believed to have been caused by "foul play." The FBI was notified. The Utility has recommended to build the wall higher there.

I like that idea--BUILD THE WALL.

Tuesday, July 31, 2018

Electric Generation Power Summary

In year 2002, we entered into a contract with FMPA that locked us into higher power costs. Commissioner Maxwell voted FOR that contract.

The beginning of lowering rates started in December 2008 when we voted to exit FMPA All Requirements. By the end of 2013, we ended our contract with them. In January 2014 we got a new energy provider with Orlando Utilities giving us a rate that was more favorable to Lake Worth. Tonight, discussion will take place on purchase power contracts.

According to the agenda tonight, FMPA has been contracted again, this time regarding our solar--Solar Power Sales Contract with FMPA; deliveries begin June 2020