A month ago, I wrote:
NOPEC isn't going to save us. The new "aggregation" deal announced last week by the Northeast Ohio Public Energy Council means that households in NOPEC cities, including Cleveland, will pay about $12.74 per mcf from April through September ($9.70 contract gas cost, plus 73 cents in sales tax on the gas, plus $2.30 for East Ohio's transportation charge). This will probably be no more than 2% or 3% cheaper than Dominion East Ohio's own rates, which will fall to a similar level for the same period. Then NOPEC has to negotiate a new -- and higher -- contract gas rate for bills starting in October.Well, I was wrong. On Thursday, Dominion East Ohio filed its regular "utility rate" for April, and it's not 2%-3% higher than the ballyhooed NOPEC rate -- it's thirty-three cents cheaper!
So after all the press hype -- not to mention the cost of mailing all that pretty color-glossy literature to hundreds of thousands of homes -- it turns out what NOPEC is offering us is the chance to pay more for natural gas from now through October, unless we "opt out" of the offer and stay with Dominion's non-choice rate. Or unless they pull the plug on the offer, which I have to believe (and hope) is under consideration.
NOPEC's supplier for its $9.70 gas is Dominion's wholesale arm. At a community meeting two weeks ago, NOPEC spokesperson Bess Vrettos assured me they had very good reason to believe that the regular Dominion East Ohio rate would be going up in April. Did NOPEC's "expert" negotiators just get flat-out suckered?
And incidentally: This somewhat explosive information has been public at least since Friday. Has it been covered in the Plain Dealer, but is not showing up on their archive search? Or has the PD just missed it? John Funk, where are you?