In November, Missouri voters approved by a sizeable margin the Missouri Clean Energy Initiative, which is intended to move the power producers of Missouri to a higher level of production using renewable resources.
The initiative requires the state’s three investor-owned electric utilities to get 15 percent of their electricity from renewable resources by 2021. Don Willis, general manager of the Hannibal Board of Public Works, questions if the guidelines set forth in Proposition C can be accomplished.
“To get all this renewable power supply by 2021, and with the investor-owned utilities not able to raise their rates by more than 1 percent, that’s impossible. You’ve got to have wind, solar, hydro-electric, or something that is renewable. Prop C also says that 2 percent has to be from solar. Solar is the most expensive electrical energy that you can get,” he said. “You can’t invest money in normal power supplies, coal-fired power plants or whatever, and not raise your rates more than 1 percent. To get these expensive energy sources and not raise the rates by 1 percent, I don’t know how they can do it.”
Willis predicts power suppliers will have to look elsewhere to meet the guidelines.
“They can’t build all of these things in Missouri to get renewable power supplies in service by the next 12 years. What they’re going to have to do is go out and buy portions of things that are already under construction, like a wind farm in Nebraska or Texas,” he said. “They’re going to have to buy power from that to meet these demands. When they do that the cost is going to go up.”
While Hannibal customers won’t feel the impact immediately, they will in time, according to Willis.
“I’ve only got a (power supply) contract that goes for three more years. They (electricity suppliers) are going to take these things all into account when Hannibal or anybody else goes out for a new contract,” he said. “All these things will be passed on to the municipalities, who will then pass them on to their customers.”
How big of an increase could customers expect to see in the future?
“I don’t know. I’d be afraid to say what the rates will be, but they’ve got to go up. I can’t see how they’re going to go down,” said Willis.
Willis doesn’t believe consumers fully understood the proposition potential impact when they entered the voting booth last year.
“It sounded like a good idea with renewable power supplies and it is a good idea, but at the same time to get these things within the next 12 years and not raise rates by more than 1 percent, I just think it’s impossible,” he said. “It’s not that it’s not a good idea, I just think keeping the cost down is impossible.”
Hannibal, MO —
