Pepco announces plan to shift all power facilities to wind and solar energy, may cancel planned rate hikes Pepco notifies its customers that it wishes “to serve the energy needs of our customers for generations to come.”
Washington DC – In an unprecedented move this morning, Pepco Holdings Inc. executives announced plans to shift all of their energy facilities to wind and solar energy by the year 2020. The DC-area power giant has already delivered the news of its green energy transition to thousands of its customers in the DC area through door-to-door flyers distributed this morning. Pepco is an innovative power company serving 1.9 million customers in Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, and New Jersey.
Pepco is now reconsidering proposed rate hikes that would have raised the cost of electricity bills to its customers. In letters to their customers this morning, company executives implied the planned rate hikes may not be necessary after the shift to alternative energy sources. The company may also cancel rate increases to many of its customers. Customers can call (202) 833-7500 to find out if they apply for a Pepco rate adjustment.
“It is time to revolutionize the power grid,” said Joseph M. Rigby, CEO of Pepco Holdings, Inc. “Pepco’s dependency of fossil fuels is making the future unsafe for our children and grandchildren. We hope to lead the way for other power companies in our transformation to a truly sustainable power grid. We realize that fossil fuels are on their way out, and we need to change with the times to continue to serve the energy needs of our customers for generations to come. It’s not just good business, it’s good for humanity.”
In a letter to its customers sent out this morning, Pepco further explained that it intends to stop the use of coal sourced from “mountaintop removal” surface mining sites that damage mountains:
Pepco is going green. This week, we will start a plan to provide 100% of electricity in the District of Columbia from wind and solar energy by 2020. We will negotiate with power companies like Mirant Corporation to stop burning “mountaintop removal” coal for DC electricity. We will enter into contracts with wind and solar energy providers and promote the use of residential solar generation. Finally, we will immediately stop building new Pepco fossil fuel power plants. The future of energy is in wind and solar, not fossil fuels.
The company is still working to accomplish a strategy to cancel the planned rate hikes, but according to Anthony J. Kamerick, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, they are “very interested” in canceling the hikes. They are, said Kamerick, exploring a plan to pursue affordable alternative energy sources based on wind turbines and photovoltaic (solar) panels, rather than based on coal and oil, which will be more expensive in the future. Some customers may be eligible immediately for a special renewable energy rate adjustment.
“Fossil fuel costs are projected to rise, which helps to cause the rate hikes,” said Kamerick, citing figures that showed future inabilities of fossil fuel supplies to keep up with demands on the energy grid. “Why wouldn’t we take a look at switching to more flat-rate energy sources?”
Pepco Holdings, Inc, encourages reporters to attend a press conference at their Washington DC headquarters next week to learn more about its announcement. Further details of Pepco’s transformation to be announced.
Pepco customers with questions should call the following Customer Service hotlines:
Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey: 1-866-254-6502
Washington DC area: (202) 872-2680
Pepco rate adjustment questions: (202) 833-7500
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Pepco Holdings, Inc is one of the largest energy delivery companies in the Mid-Atlantic region, serving about 1.9 million customers in Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland and New Jersey. PHI subsidiaries Pepco, Delmarva Power and Atlantic City Electric provide regulated electricity service; Delmarva Power also provides natural gas service. PHI provides competitive wholesale generation services through Conectiv Energy and retail energy products and services through Pepco Energy Services.
Allegations of pranksterism:
From Fox News:
An internet website claims that a major U.S. utility provider was going ‘green’ by switching to wind and solar energy was part of an April Fools Day hoax.
Pepco says that a website mimicking the appearance of pepco.com made the claims online Thursday.
The site, pepco-green.com published a phony release titled “New Plans to Shift All Power Facilities to Wind & Solar Energy.” The website claims that the switch will be in place by 2020 and that rate increases for many customers would be cancelled.
Andre Francis, spokesman for Pepco spoke with myfoxdc and said that Pepco is not related in anyway to the website pepco-green.com and that the claims stated on that website are false.
Pepco.com posted a message that stated, “We have been alerted that a bogus Web site and other false communications posing as Pepco were issued today. This bogus Web site is not secure and does not represent Pepco.”
Pepco is a regulated utility company that provides electricity to more than 767,000 homes and businesses in the District of Columbia and its Maryland suburbs.
From Washington Post:
By David A. Fahrenthold | Staff Writer | Washington Post
The letters were written on Pepco letterhead, and appeared to be signed by Joseph M. Rigby, chief executive of Pepco’s parent company, Pepco Holdings. They announced that “Pepco is going green,” and laid out what seemed to be significant policy changes by the electric utility.
First, the letter said, the utility aimed to provide 100 percent of local electric power from wind and solar energy by 2020. Then, the letter said Pepco would negotiate with the power plants it buys electricity from, asking them not to burn coal from mountaintop removal mines.
The letter directed customers to http://www.pepco-green.com, a Web site that carried similar messages.
This morning, Pepco put out a statement saying that the letter and the Web site were fake.
“We have been alerted that a bogus Web site and other false communications posing as Pepco were issued today. This bogus Web site is not secure and does not represent Pepco,” Pepco said on its Web site.
“Some folks really did a good job,” Pepco spokesman Clay Anderson said this morning. “But it ain’t us.”
It is difficult to trace exactly which sources a particular customer — or even a particular city — gets its electricity from, because power is shared across inter-state grids. But federal data show that many local power plants buy portions of their coal from areas of West Virginia and Kentucky where mountaintop removal mining (also called “mountaintop mining”) is prevalent.
At these mines, entire Appalachian peaks are sheared off with explosives and earth-moving equipment to reach coal seams inside them. Afterward, excess rubble is often pushed into nearby valleys, burying them to the brim.
Anderson said he would investigate to see whether Pepco could identify how much of its power comes from mountaintop removal coal.
A group called the Greenwash Guerrillas claimed responsibility for the hoax. Lacy MacAuley, a spokeswoman for the group, said they had about 40 members, and were a year old.
MacAuley said that the group had placed about 3,000 letters around Washington and suburban Maryland. She called it “greenwash guerrilla warfare,” against people identified as “perpetrators,” promoting policies that worsen climate change.
“We hit many residential areas. . . . We targeted areas that we thought may contain energy professionals,” MacAuley said in a telephone interview.
How did they know where these “energy professionals” lived?
“I’m not at liberty to go into details,” MacAuley said.
She said the group would be holding a “Fossil-fuel-free dance party” at 8 p.m. Thursday at 18th and Belmont streets NW.
The dance, presumably, is not a hoax.
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