It's just getting interesting. Twin Cities Business magazine, in the December issue, has an article on this new utility ratemaking concept, of which I am not a fan. With inverted block rates, the more natural gas you use, the higher price you pay per unit. As an analogy, consider the idea that the driver of a Hummer should pay $5 a gallon for gasoline, but the driver of a Prius, should only pay $2 per gallon. It penalizes the large user (forget economies of scale and volume discounts). So you can see why environmentalists like it, it has that punitive element they crave.
But it also penalizes the low-income user, who lives in an old, poorly-insulated home.
It's all part of "revenue decoupling", removing the connection between the profit a utility makes and actually delivering the commodity they sell. Good work if you can get it!
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